Paper Flower
by locket dust
Summary: Fragile little Carrie falls in love with her dummy, Slappy, and wishes him to be real. But when he does come to life for her, he is not at all what she dreamed.
1. Cold as Clay

_"It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat_  
><em>but often the shadow seems more real than the body."<em>

Tomas Tranströmer, from "After a Death", translated by Robert Bly

* * *

><p>Chapter One ~ Cold as Clay<p>

* * *

><p>The winding, darkened halls at Rose Hill Orphanage are always bitterly freezing; even the beds and shiny classroom desks are as cold as clay. I press my small hand into the many decorated walls endlessly and never find warmth, only icy brick and winter plaster. But I like the cold, it makes me feel pure and fragile, as if I could dissolve into snow and disappear from here forever. I like to crawl beneath my blankets at night, shivering and hiding, and the heat of my dreams covers me like a fever shadow. It is magical to escape from the other children, to drown in the black coldness and become a mermaid of the dreaming sea. During the suffocating days with the others, I am the mermaid of pain, taking their words and torment and swallowing them like poison, dragging my bleeding feet and crying with a sore, silent mouth.<p>

Rose Hill Orphanage is part of a grand, decaying manor; the other half of the impressive house is where a funeral parlor lies, and where we children are not allowed to go. Still we creep to the chain-locked doors; still we try to peek in at the silver trays of corpses, and still we dare each other to sneak in when the swaths of padlocks happen to be unchained. Always our knees tremble and knock together, always someone wets their pajama pants or nightgown. When I am the one to be pushed into the deathly frozen hall and trapped there, to hear the hushed laughter squealing and fading on the other side as they run away to leave me, I quietly lean against the slick wall and wait for Madame Louisa to find me. I have never soaked myself with stinking urine and crawled back to bed in shame! But the echo of the stilled morgue, the dream of heavy, sad and thumping footsteps coming towards me in the dark haunts my nightmares and decorates my skin with a river of goosebumps.

"_They wrap you up in a big white sheet, from your head down to your feet! They put you in a big black box, and cover you with dirt and rocks! All goes well for about a week, then your coffin begins to leak. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout! They eat your eyes, they eat your nose, they eat the jelly between your toes! A big green worm with rolling eyes, crawls in your stomach and out your eyes! Your stomach turns a slimy green, and pus pours out like whipping cream. You spread it on a slice of bread, and that's what you eat when you are dead!" _

Their favorite song, the chilling 'Hearse Song' meant to make little children laugh, but my flesh crawls when they sing it at me, their faces blurred so close to mine, slashed mouths loudly chanting. I cannot count how many times they have put stale, lumpy cream cheese on my toast in the morning; or crept into my room at midnight to smear it on my belly while I am sleeping, gleefully waiting to hear my cries when I awaken. Do not forget the slippery purple jelly they slide between my toes, which I spend hours in the bathtub scrubbing away furiously.

All of them are stronger than me, which gives them the delicious and wicked energy to torture my powerless, babyish self. Rhonda is their leader; she is eleven years old and wears her uniform dress too short, so that it shows her shimmery-smooth thighs. She has smoky-black hair that trails to her waist, hair black as her heart. Harold is her slobbering dog with his tight leather leash; eleven also, thin as a doll made from sticks and breath that could make the dear birds drop frightfully from the trees. Peter is my age, seven, but disgusted to have anything to do with me, his fat stomach drooping over his pants each time he attacks, sometimes even brushing against my arm which makes me retch. Julia is seven as well, and as frail as I am, but her gray eyes shine with hatred from behind her glasses when she thinks of me. I dream sometimes of punching them into her face and making blood streak down her bony cheeks like tears.

"The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out!" Harold and Peter snicker into my ears as I travel down the hallway to lunch. Their grubby hands grab at my long hair, one set of spidery fingers and another of fat little fingers they pretend are squirming worms. Their nails snag viciously in my pale blonde strands and tug me backwards, which makes me the last one to reach the splintered wood table as they untangle themselves and hurry on laughing.

"Carrie, glad you could join us," Madame Louisa is never happy to see me, I sit down silently as she splatters mashed potatoes melted with what is probably cheddar past its expiration date on my plate. I thank her and adjust the big white ribbon tied around my waist. Our uniform dress is deep, midnight blue with ribbon, white lace stockings and black patent Mary Jane shoes. We are allowed to wear our hair how we like it, bows and ribbons are encouraged but I always let mine hang straight down my back.

"Madame Louisa, I believe there is a worm caught in Carrie's dirty, greasy hair!" Rhonda squealed, and Julia's eyes glittered maliciously. "It is so very rude of her to come to the table with worms in her hair! Please make her leave immediately, I won't be able to keep my food down!"

"Hush Rhonda, all you children with your silly games. Carrie needs only to comb her hair more properly," she dropped her glinting fork into the potatoes while eyeing me greedily. I knew that Rhonda, Julia, and Madame Louisa were all jealous of my hair, and because theirs was not as shiny or silky they put their anger and wrath upon me, hoping it would turn my sunflower hair to rotten weeds. I kept my head still while I ate, so my hair wouldn't happen to catch light from the fireplace and gleam, inspiring their hatred of me to a stronger fury.

"Look at what I found out in the gardens!" Mr. Grammel trudged in and grunted at us, carrying with him a sweet little dummy dressed in a black tuxedo, his hair the color of flames and eyes like emeralds. Oh I wanted to go and kiss him immediately, but he was so dirty! "I'm gonna wash the little devil up and then put him in the play room, he might have worms stuck in his head,"

"He sounds like the perfect companion for Carrie!" Julia announced, and my cheeks flushed as I continued to eat in silence, hoping I could play with him and have him all to myself. Mr. Grammel would do a very fine job with cleaning him up, he was the gardener but worked inside as well, repairing the furnace whenever it went out, fixing the pipes when they were frozen solid with a sheet of water, or whenever Harold found it funny to clog them. His hands were so beautiful, I thought they must be able to put anything back together, so I was sure he would take care of my dummy.

"Maybe he walked all the way here just to be with Carrie," Mr. Grammel smiled at me, his misty brown eyes twinkled and he left for his office. I watched the dummy as he was led in Mr. Grammel's hand, and swore that his bright red wooden lips actually curled into a smile as he stared back at me, which was impossible! But my heart was warmed, maybe he could be my friend, and I wouldn't feel so terribly alone and empty, moving through the house like vapor each day.

That night when we gathered in the playroom, which was like a museum of dusty vintage toys, the dummy was there waiting for us, propped in a cushioned rocking chair with his hands folded serenely on his lap. I stood in the doorway holding my breath, too scared to approach my beautiful new friend. Peter reached out and slapped his wooden cheeks cruelly.

"He's so ugly! Mr. Grammel should have buried him and put him out of his misery!" Julia wrinkled her nose in disgust, and Rhonda quickly agreed with her.

"I don't even want him in this house! To even think about his ugliness, it's appalling!" she crossed her braceleted arms and refused to look at the poor lonely dummy.

"Leave him alone!" I cried, and flitted into the bitter room, taking my friend into my loving arms. "I think he is nice, beautiful even," I crooned into his shiny scarlet hair and petted his fancy suit.

"Look, of course Baby Carrie loves him, he is her kind! Ugly and unwanted!" Julia and Rhonda begin to chant that together, _Ugly and unwanted! _so that Harold and Peter join in. Julia reaches out for a strand of my pale hair and yanks it. "Why don't you take your ugly dummy out of here! He's even uglier than you!"

"Yeah, we don't want to see your stupid faces!" Peter shoves me out of his way and sits down in the rocking chair, it creaks wearily.

Tears sting my eyes as I keep the dummy close to my chest and wander into the dark bath of cool air that waits in the hallway, tears not for myself but for my friend, because it is only his first night here and already they treat him as badly as they treat me. "We'll be safe in my room, I'll bolt the door," I whisper in his bone-sharp little ear, putting him on my bed and then shoving a desk chair beneath the doorknob. I wiggle it to make sure it can't be opened, and then change into my nightgown. The dummy waits comfortably on my pillows, and I cover us with blankets and stare into his large, seedy eyes while the wind blows the crisp autumn leaves outside. In the morning the garden will be sheathed in dead yellow jewels. His wooden skin is so icy to touch I shiver, it has a pale-green shine to it, almost as if he was once alive but now his flesh is rotting from an enchanted curse put upon him. "You are as cold as clay," I tell him, cuddling him against my frigid skin. "I think you are beautiful, the others are so mean and wrong to treat you that way. They are mean to me too. I'm so lonely and miserable here, will you be my friend?"

Was it a trick of the moonlight? I swear that his green eye winked at me!


	2. The Trouble

Chapter Two ~ The Trouble

* * *

><p>A thousand dead leaves the colors of brownish, yellow cracked diamonds and withered rubies were heavily garnished across the gray gardens as I predicted, I gazed through the frozen glass of the window as they fluttered in the wind and drooped back to the earth. I was sitting on Mr. Grammel's scratched desk with my dummy in my lap, he too watched the leaves frolic and slumber as the last drop of summer bled from their spiny veins. In the morning I had awoken to a bunch of violets arranged prettily on my desk, and the dummy's arm draped over my waist. At breakfast Madame Louisa had complained of tiny, filthy footprints in the entrance corridor and traces of soil on the back staircase which led to the bedrooms. Now I turned the dummy to face me, looking hard into his flinty olive eyes but finding absolutely no hint of life.<p>

"It was probably Peter, he has the smallest feet I've ever seen for a boy of his size," Mr. Grammel spoke as if he knew what I was thinking of, that silently I tortured myself with thinking the dummy might be alive. But it really couldn't have been him, for the odd little footprints did not lead to my door, they disappeared halfway up the dreary stairwell. I hugged the dummy to my chest and then smiled at Mr. Grammel, thinking he was the one to leave me the perfumed violets.

"Do you think I should call him Slappy?" I asked sweetly about my new friend, and Mr. Grammel gave me a puzzled look. "I found a card in his breast pocket this morning, it had strange words I didn't know how to pronounce, but above them was the name 'Slappy'. It's a very cute name but I don't think it's elegant enough to suit him," the card had tumbled out of his pocket while we slept, and I awoke to find it crumpled near my frozen feet.

"Well, if that's what he wants you to call him, you better do it and not make him angry," Mr. Grammel's smiling teeth glinted teasingly. "What were the other words, did you say?"

"I don't know, I didn't try to pronounce them because they seemed so queer, like Chinese writing! Actually they frightened me," I admitted, and told Mr. Grammel how I had foolishly hidden the card beneath my mattress. Dry leaves licked at the window panes and I turned to stare at the ground below once more. I watched Mr. Grammel reflected in the frosted glass, he was wearing an old white t-shirt with his tattoo showing. The black ink printed like burnt charcoal on his skin of a grinning demon face with sharp fangs. Harold told me once it meant Mr. Grammel had been possessed, and that the demon tattoo talked to him and told him things to do. The other children said it would eat me up the first time I came here, and now I thought to myself that I wouldn't mind being trapped inside of his beautiful, protective arm, his mossy flesh the color of the woods in winter. I blushed when he spied me looking and peered into the garden.

The other children took an immense dislike to my carrying Slappy with me everywhere I went. They complained of feeling creepy and having chills whenever I put him at the desk next to mine during lessons, or slid him into the chair beside me at the dinner table. If they ever tried to hurt him, though, it was safe in my arms he went, no matter his heavy wooden weight I always kept him close to me. Slappy helped me to polish the floors whenever I was punished, I'd prop him against the wall with a tattered rag in his hand, face away from him while I got on my scarred, tender hands and knees, pretending behind me he was doing the same, and in no time the floors gleamed as they must do in palaces! Always, even if I turned very quickly or slanted my eye secretly towards him, he would be in the place just where I left him, and I told myself it was his agile, magical speed that kept me from viewing him in motion. At night I would curl up next to him, the coldness of our skin mingling into a drowsy warmth, and tell him my secrets, or cry upon his wooden chest about how Julia had sliced into my arm with a sharpened pencil, or that she had attempted to dump paste into my hair. Before I shut my wet eyes to sleep I swore his fingers caressed the fragile strands of my fair hair, but I was too dreamy to lift my head and see.

Slappy did not start causing real trouble until mid-September when Madame Louisa was swiftly and carelessly giving our history lesson. So many dates to scribble down, so many long names of gallant war generals! The words tumbled from her mouth like marbles doused in spit, clattering onto the floor and then I could hear them no more, her voice became fleetingly droning. I looked over at Slappy, I had put a fresh pencil in his tiny fist, and the sheaf of paper beneath the tip of the silver pencil was blank. How I wish he could move that hand lightning-fast across the paper for me!

"Hey lady! Why don't you slow your flabby self down! I can't understand anything you're saying, you big dumb smelly witch!" a voice screeched out into the iciness of the classroom, a needle-like, stinging high-pitch cackle erupted from beside me. I gasped and dropped my pencil, it rolled between my shaking feet. It was Slappy! Slappy had talked! And his voice was pure evil!

"Who dares to speak to me with such savage disrespect?" Madame Louisa slapped her palms down on her desk and glared at us all, her tiny, severe blue eyes burning into mine, which grew to the size of oranges as I shrank back in fear. "Carrie! You wicked little imp!"

"No, please! It wasn't me, it was…" my heart tightened and I peered at Slappy, who was glacial and relaxed, but beneath his hand, notes were scrawled across the paper! Everything Madame Louisa had lectured! I went pale and suddenly the room began to swim darkly around me, the walls sweating and mocking and menacing as fangs.

"Carrie! Are you listening to me? You shall write one-hundred times across the blackboard, "I Shall Not Disrupt Madame Louisa's Intellectual and Stimulating History Lecture Ever Again, For It Is Extremely Rude"

"Intellectual and Stimulating? Give me a break! Try Brainless and Dull as a Door Knob! Ha ha ha!" the harsh voice went on cackling, I tried to see Slappy through the blackness that had suddenly swarmed down upon me, the shadows were so thick and watery, and they breathed onto my skin and helped me to ease into nothingness.

"She's gonna hurl! She's gonna black out!" I heard Peter shout, and then Julia and Rhonda laughing bitterly. The floor was soothing; I pressed my cheek into the slick, cold wood and a smile came to my blanch lips. The dark malevolent shadows had been chased away, I peered up at Slappy who grinned down at me, eyes twinkling with a mischievous adoration, and then the shadow came back to swallow me whole.

Slappy was face down on my bed when I returned from the sick room, seeing him broken and crumpled like that with his poor face smothered in the pillow shredded my heart to ribbons, I locked the door and ran to cradle him, but to my horror I found his face was covered with awful doodles! They had done it, Julia, Peter, Rhonda and Harold, they had colored across his face with red magic markers! Dirty words and devil faces! Now the ribbons turned to dust and I cried bitterly, taking a tissue and wetting it with moisture from my mouth.

"I'm so sorry to have left you alone, Slappy! I really thought it was you speaking! But now I see, it must have been Peter or Harold; they were trying to play a nasty trick on me. And now I'm the one in trouble! I have to write on the blackboard one-hundred times and wipe it clean each time! Even worse, to reach the highest part, I have to stand on the rickety old ladder, and I'm so scared of ladders, Slappy!" when his face was shiny and clear once more, I brought him with me under the covers and sobbed onto his abused, hard and cold little body, hoping he wouldn't be angry with me for staining his shirt.

I drifted in and out of sleep, my face dry and crusted with salty diamond tears. Through the red chiffon curtains the moonlight filtered into my room, jagged moon-white stripes across the walls through the fire-colored silk, a big dreamy zebra galloping around my room when the wind blew, and leaves whispering against the glass. I felt dream-sick with drowsiness and rolled over to cuddle Slappy to my chest, finding he was not there. In the glassy shadows I lifted my head heavily, thinking perhaps I had shoved him to the edge of the bed in sleep or he had fallen onto the floor accidentally. I heard the creak of wooden joints in the flowery dark and held my breath, telling myself it was not true, only a dream, only the wind outside! But in the morning Slappy smiled up at me with glossy slashed lips, and when I walked into the dreary classroom for lessons, this was scrawled across the blackboards: "MADAME LOUISA IS A HEINOUS JEALOUS GIANT FAT COW! MOLDY CHEESE IS MORE INTELLUCTAL AND STIMULATING THAN HER LESSONS!"


	3. The Green Ribbon

Chapter Three ~ The Green Ribbon

* * *

><p>My punishment was strict, exhausting, and illuminating. Even though Madame Louisa had no evidence I was the one to write the hateful message on the blackboard, she sent me to bed without supper for a week. I had to scrub all of the floors twice each day, once in the morning and once in the evening, while the other children ate their dinner by the warm fireplace. I plunged my sore hands into ice water to wash the laundry, the mixture of soapy powder and freezing water drying my hands to the bone and leaving them coarse and blistered. Mr. Grammel began to look at me as though I were demented, he feared me, he found me terribly strange. No longer did he let me come into his office for our quiet conversations I so dearly loved, now he paid more attention to Rhonda, a rapt attention that turned my chapped skin green with jealousy. She was the one invited into his office; I was left glaring at the locked door on my hands and knees, a stained sloshing tin bucket beside me and soaking washcloths wrinkling the flesh of my palms.<p>

It would have been unbearable and the death of my spirit if it were not for Slappy. He stayed by my side through every chore, and during the night he snuck down into the kitchens to gather food for me. I knew that it was him; no one else would have cared if my stomach was full enough so that I could sleep soundly. I would wake from a slumber which only drained a greater amount of energy from my limbs, my eyelids and dreary head sagging with fatigue and languid-sickness, and there would be Slappy propped at my desk, his hands folded across his lap, and a silver tray of salad, cold roast beef, scraps of chicken, a glass of milk, and sometimes a rose or violet from the fading gardens. I covered him with kisses and tears thanking him, wishing he could speak to me! His glassy olive eyes watched with satisfaction as I heartily ate the meal he prepared, and then we would go to sleep; I sang him lullabies of blossoms growing in the attic and dripping down through the ceiling, filling the entire manor with soil and petals and flowery perfume. Now that my hunger had quieted, I didn't care of being lulled to sleep—Slappy's comfort and peace became the most important, feeding his desire was soon to be my entire world, no matter how dark that desire surfaced to be.

Rhonda no longer tortured me, now that she was occupied with Mr. Grammel's rapt attentions, she spent her time either in his office or locked in her bedroom. At lessons and at meals, I noticed her eyes appeared coral-red and puffy, and so did her cheeks, as though she slapped herself to stop from crying. Harold, Peter, and Julia seemed powerless at first without their queen, once so florid with vanity and confidence, but soon began to make fun of her as well, for becoming a baby like me. I watched Rhonda in marvel and terror, seeing how she barely ate her food, how the silver prongs of the fork carelessly stabbed through the boiled cabbage and then slumped lifeless onto the table, moist and tainted with uneaten food. During lessons her eyes would be strained to the long glassy stillness of the windows, gazing at the rain slicking the bare, dusty panes; her sad wistful head seeming to want the water to burst through and drown the entire room.

Even with jealousy eating through my veins, I worried for her; she was growing translucent and skeletal like me. I took Slappy with me some nights to tap at her door, wanting to put on a puppet show for her, but no one ever answered. I pressed my ear to the tender wood and heard muffled sobs always.

"What do you think you're up to?" Julia's high, freezing voice bit at my spine and I slowly turned to face her, hatred blazing in my eyes. "You think that now Rhonda's a crybaby like you, that maybe she'll be friends with you? How pathetic! Even at her worst she would never think highly of you!" her thin berry-pink lips tightened into that strict and pleasured little smile I despised. I felt Slappy stir in my arms, but ignored his strange, newly alive weight. "And what are you staring at, hmm? Ugly dumb turkey! Why don't you go back into the mud of the gardens, where you belong! No one wants you here!"

My heart turned to rags of pounding ice as I saw Slappy extend his shining, tiny hand and strike it roughly against Julia's peach-fresh cheeks. The sound of her face being smacked was like soggy meat being thrown onto a pristine slab of glossy tabletop, the crisp, sharp slap echoing down the hall and slickly haunting my ears. Julia stumbled to the floor and lay there, weeping and clutching pitifully at her stinging face. I stood above her holding Slappy, my own lips harshly bubbling a ruthless smile.

"Oh! You wicked little monster! You made him hit me! I saw you!" Julia remained sprawled on the floor, her glasses clouded with moisture and dripping tears soothing the burning of her cheek. "I'm telling on you! You're a witch! You really are!"

"Is that so? Carrie tells me that you're the witch, and I believe her! You asked for that slap, little girl, and you deserve it! Look at you now, helpless, feeble and timid, just as Carrie was all the times you attacked her! Sniveling little brat!" Slappy cackled viciously at Julia as he sat upright against my chest, I felt his torso spin and his arms surge with power as he struggled to be free of my grasp and hit her once more. I couldn't believe it! I only stood with my mouth slackened and breath trembling with fear; while he wriggled on in my arms and then looked back at me, a spicy green wink of his twinkling eye before he slumped over across my wrists and Madame Louisa had climbed the stairs.

"Carrie! What have you done now?" she immediately chided me, and bent to help Julia find her shaking feet. "You have struck this child?"

"No!" I cried, my entire body beginning to shiver with anger. Why did she always blame me, always in her blind temper, always wanting to make me suffer! It wasn't fair! I clutched Slappy to my chest protectively when her eyes slid icily upon him.

"Madame Louisa! Carrie made her dummy hit me! She made that wretched thing hit me, I saw it!" Julia lied between her teeth, her cheek shining in the dim hallway with the imprint of Slappy's malicious hand.

"Pixie from hell! I should throw you into the streets! Or better yet, I'll get rid of the dummy! Ever since you've had him you have turned into this wicked child-monster!" she lunged for Slappy and I screamed, gripping my arms around him as she pulled at his smooth, polished hands. "Please, no!" I begged for my friend's life, without him I would be dead again, I couldn't imagine staying in this dismal palace of loneliness without him. "Let go!" I screeched, but Madame Louisa held on strong, pinching my arms and even reaching to slap me as Slappy had hit Julia, but I would never let him slip from my arms, never.

Again I felt Slappy warm and awake in my clinging limbs, and sure enough the white little hand was stretching towards Madame Louisa's throat, splintered fingers curling round the green satin necklace she always wore, a diamond heart encrusted in the middle. He wound his fingers tightly and whispered to me to run backwards. I obeyed and the ribbon unraveled savagely, snapping in half and coming loose from her neck like a fragile strand of seaweed. I looked for the beautiful heart-shaped diamond but didn't see it scatter across the floor. Madame Louisa staggered backwards and raked her fingers at her naked throat, and then began to scream, as if she were losing her head, her mind! She flew back down the stairs and I heard the door to her room slam, where she continued to scream and moan all through the night.

"You're a freak, Carrie" Julia spit at my shoes and ran away, not daring to look back at us. I buried my face into Slappy's shoulder, and felt him press something into my hand. My fingers bloomed open and through my tears I saw the diamond was there, glittering upon my palm. "Oh!" I felt faint, how much trouble I would be in if Madame Louisa knew I had her brooch! But Slappy told me it belonged to me now, and shut my fingers around the sparkling heart.

"Why is everyone screaming?" Rhonda had cracked open her door, peering out at me and Slappy through a wire-thin opening, her eyes ballooned and cherry-rimmed. Aghast, I stared back at her dumbly. "Was that Madame Louisa?" she asked, and I nodded. "What happened to her?"

"She…Slappy, I mean…she broke her necklace, her favorite necklace," I stuttered painfully, waiting for Rhonda's eyes to slant into the mean, dusk-colored stones that coldly viewed me with immense hatred and disgust, but her door slowly creaked, now ajar, and the darkening eyes I feared never became cruel, only helpless. I saw her shiny black hair was tangled and matted to her forehead, she'd been crying into the pillow and tears had soaked through clumps of her disheveled tresses.

"What is your dummy's name?" she asked, sounding as much a frightened little girl as I did when I answered questions meekly during lessons.

"His name is Slappy," I tried to smile, but feared Slappy might hurt Rhonda too. I pinned his arms to the hinged slats of his hips and he remained limp and doll-like.

"I guess he isn't so bad," Rhonda sniffed. It felt so strange and warm to not be threatened by her. "Carrie, Madame Louisa only treats you so bad because she's jealous of you. You are beautiful, she never was. It was the same for me when I first came here," I gulped and continued to stare at her mutely; the puffiness of her eyes had begun to fade, leaving them haunted and glazed. "Mr. Grammel will treat you bad next, when you are my age," and with that she shut the door. I didn't know what she meant, I stood in the weak, watery light of the hallway and felt stupid, but glad to have Rhonda talk to me without ugliness, even if she did not become my friend, she didn't hate me. I felt the weight of the heart from Madame Louisa's shattered necklace in my hand again, and then peered down at Slappy.

"I'm tired from all this commotion! Let's go to bed!" he hissed in my ear. I did as he wanted; carrying him to my room and tucking him into bed, all the while keeping the diamond heart grasped tightly in my hand as I changed into my nightgown and brushed my hair. I slid my arms round him and felt him do the same, and the diamond charm gleamed in the shadow as I sang another lullaby, my voice strange to me, shrill and ghostlike but still able to put me right into sleep.


	4. Beautiful Nightmare

Chapter Four ~ Beautiful Nightmare

* * *

><p>I cannot describe how easily it was for me to accept that Slappy was alive, it was as simple as looking up at the moon and seeing a silver man smiling back at you. During the night, his fingers moving like daisy petals to clench my hand, or to pull the covers tightly over me; in the mornings, the tiny footprints gleaming in the dust, leading from the door to my bed—the mischief he was up to while I slept did not perturb me. I was so tremendously happy to have Slappy as a friend, my heart melted when he sat up and spoke to me, when he told me he liked my stories and lullabies, and at his confession: I had been the only one to treat him like a prince in his entire life. His poor head had been cracked; an eye gouged out, he'd been thrown down sewers and wells, buried in the dirt, struck by lightning! Slappy had suffered so much more than I had, and alone through all the darkness. Nightmares that had plagued me once became small when I held him; as long as I had Slappy, we would both be protected from harm.<p>

Rhonda slid her eyes curiously across the dining table at Slappy and I more often now, and during class she even snickered when he'd knock his books to the floor, although Madame Louisa still blamed me for everything that went wrong. He sure loves trouble, that Slappy does! The bad magic he did was always in my honor. Once at lunch, he put squashed cockroaches in the pumpkin soup bowls of Julia, Harold, and Peter! The amber colored bodies still squirmed in their small deaths, which sent them all crying to Madame Louisa for clean soup, they were still hungry! But pallid with fear as they spooned their fresh bowls, while Slappy sat beside me, his wicked eyebrow wriggling like a worm across his face, always a show of pride and amusement from those resentful glassy green eyes.

He targeted Julia the most, knowing she was my filthiest tormentor. All the things she had once done to me, I whispered in Slappy's cold wooden ear, and they came back to her five times worse! Ink dunked into her hair, thick black liquid oozing down her scalp and settling in the pits of her eyelids, livid shining grease blinding her. Sneaking into her room and hiding things which belonged to Madame Louisa, so that when the stolen items were discovered she received lashings across her thieving palms. I loved the blood-red scarred flesh of her palms; Julia caught me staring dreamily and snarled, but I wasn't afraid of her anymore. Slappy continued to write his devilish messages upon the chalkboard, such cleverness as: "My name is Julia and I keep rotting fish in my shoes!" "I am Julia, the four-eyed orphan who has been here longest! Why does no one want me?"

I relished in Slappy's torture of Julia, until the night she burst into my room with Harold and Peter, condemning me as a witch while the boys bound my hands and feet with a dirty jump rope and stuffed a teddy bear head in my mouth. The rope was so tight and grimy it blistered my skin, grating the flesh until thin cracks of blood came out.

"We know what you and your dummy are up to, Crybaby Carrie! You are a witch who has bewitched this ugly thing into doing your dirty work, because you are too weak to fight back for yourself, but you both shall be punished, and will wreak damage and evilness no more!" she stood over my bed with a candle blazing across her tiny, garish face, I thought for sure the flame would melt her thin glasses. I looked fearfully over at Slappy, who Harold was wrapping a smaller rope around, covering his face completely. "You shall spend tonight ON THE OTHER SIDE!" she began to laugh like a demon and dragged me out of bed by my hair, I heard Slappy clunking along behind us.

"Why are you making so much noise?" Rhonda met us in the gloomy hall, her eyes puffy and sleepy; Julia's manic laughter had awoken her and she was clearly grouchy about it. "Hey, what's going on? Let Carrie go! Aren't you getting a little too old for those stupid games?"

"Silence!" Julia hissed, and my heart was frozen, suddenly Julia seemed so much bigger than Rhonda, she was made more powerful by her vengeance against me. "You will join her, because you are a crybaby too! Once you were one of us, but now you have fallen to a level of disgrace! I have taken your place as leader!"

"Julia, I'm serious, untie her and go to bed!" Rhonda bent to help me out of the swaths of ropes, muttering about how annoying Julia was, but she cried out in pain and fell to the floor on her stomach, a small trickle of blood formed a river down the crown of her head. I writhed around and tried to call to Slappy for help.

"Good job, brave knights! Let's take our prisoners to the dungeon!" Julia congratulated Peter on hitting Rhonda atop the head with his flashlight, and picked me up by my hair again. Harold and Peter spread Slappy across Rhonda's back and dragged her unconscious body behind us, I peered back to see Rhonda's pale knuckles fluffing up dust from the floor.

I knew where they were carrying us. To the morgue, to that impenetrable mirrored dark and air that crawls so damp across your skin it is like the breath of ghosts. I prayed the padlock would be clamped tight around its chains, but from beneath Julia's fleshy arm I could see it was open, the chains limp upon the floor. Maliciously, Julia wished us sweet dreams, ordered Harold and Peter to hold open the entrance doors, and one by one she slid Slappy, Rhonda and I into the dense, frozen hallway; our bodies clotted together on the slick linoleum floor that smelled of moldy peaches. With my eyes closed, the doors seemed to be screaming as Julia slammed them shut and enveloped them in the rusty chains, the padlock clamped tight its metal teeth and we were trapped. The silence settled heavily into my ears, like cotton candy, the shadows came to life and whispered dreadfully, mocking my fear.

Violet dust glittered in the black shade of the hall as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I immediately looked to Slappy and saw his tiny body wiggling inside of the ropes, which were slowly becoming loose. Peter had been the one to imprison Slappy, and was miserable with tying knots. I felt cotton clinging to my teeth and sucking the moisture from my tongue, and fought to spit the stuffed teddy bear head out of my mouth.

"Slappy! Slappy! Are you all right?" I called to him, the awful dryness of my mouth making me want to cry. His eyes came into view as the ropes slid free of his face. "Slappy! Help me!" I felt the ropes upon my limbs cut deeper into my skin, there was no chance for me to slither out of them as Slappy had done.

"Hold on, toots, I'm coming!" he stood and I watched his silhouette move against the blackness, the gangly way his body moved giving me the demented urge to laugh, the shine of his shoes glinting into my eye as he stepped over the pile of ropes on the floor. "I'm going to murder those brats for this, all of them! You watch and see! I'll snap their little necks just like pencils!" he promised, his thin hands sliding beneath the ropes on my wrists and undoing the gnarled knotting, my bare kicking feet were freed next.

"Oh Slappy, thank you!" I hugged him; quiet, tearless sobs coming from my mouth. "What are we going to do? How will we get out of here?" I was aware again of the encroaching darkness as Slappy patted my injured wrists and ankles with a red handkerchief.

"Don't worry, I know a way! Downstairs, there's a door that leads into the kitchen, I've seen it when I sneak down there to get your meals. We can get back through that door, and maybe you'll get a snack if you obey me like a good girl," he lifted the tissue from my wrist, it was impossible to tell the stain from the cloth, and his voice was harsh.

"What do you mean, Slappy?"

"I've been dying to come over here! We need to find the room where they prepare the bodies!"

My eyes grew wide as I stared at him, and began to shake my head no. He grew impatient and took a tight hold of my hands, trying to tug me along. Drearily, Rhonda came to life at my side, while Slappy drooped unmoving across my lap.

"Where are we? Oh god, we are in the morgue, aren't we?" she pressed herself against the white wall and rubbed at her throbbing forehead, which was dried with blood. "Those little devils hit me!"

"Ssh, Rhonda! It's all right, I know a way back to the orphanage!" I offered her Slappy's handkerchief, and she spit on it to wash away the caking of arid blood. I looked down into Slappy's still eyes, those glass-green orbs glowing meanly in the dark, demanding me to take him to the awful room. "We have to go downstairs to get there, so follow me,"

As we wandered through the murky violet-black dusk, with chills sprinkled down my spine and dotting my skin with goosebumps, I pretended to be opening each old, creaking door in search of the stairs, but instead I was hunting for the room Slappy wished to enter, my stomach churning at the thought of what we would find there. A dead body sprawled out in the middle, bare or under a white sheet? What if he wasn't dead, what if he had been put here by mistake, but still made up to look like he should be in a coffin, and he came to life and chased us? I shivered, and Rhonda took a curious notice of me.

"How do you know the door will lead back to the orphanage?" she asked, black hair sweeping down her shoulders like a shadow taking hold of her.

"Oh, well, the door leads into the kitchen…I overheard the cook talking about it once…" I continued to nervously crack open each door, hoping she wouldn't think I was deceiving her.

"You know, you do seem much braver with that dummy, he seems so protective of you. I feel like he's alive with us, helping us find a way out, isn't that a funny thing to think?" she tugged at her hair and kept close to my elbow, and she seemed so like a frightened little child that it softened my heart.

"Rhonda, why are you different now? I mean, you are sad every day, and you cry in your room every night," we stopped in a sheet of darkness, her eyes took on a starved, distressing gleam that I could see even in the shadow, like fire.

"We should stay over here; Mr. Grammel would never find us! In the morning when the morgue opens, we could walk right through the front door and never come back!" she said after sometime, and then went quiet again, the fire in her eyes dulled to a trapped, fading brightness. I felt Slappy come alive in my arms when I pushed open the heavy door to what looked like a storage room.

"Umm, let's check in here," I muttered, and held my breath as I entered. To my relief there wasn't a dead body in the room. Cold white slabs of table were pushed against the wall, silver trays glittering with scissors for cutting clothes, needles and crystal-clear glass bottles were propped round, and freezing air grazed my skin, the room was a bitter shrine to ice, deadlier than winter. I rubbed at my shivering arms to keep warm and peered curiously at the little glass bottles lining the silver trays, pale yellow liquid slept inside.

"Carrie, it's so cold in here! Let's go!" Rhonda hissed through her chattering teeth, not daring to step further into the room. "Carrie! Your dummy! I saw his hand move! I saw it!" she gasped suddenly, her voice raspy from the cold. I observed that one of the thin glass bottles had gone missing but said nothing, my chilly feet wandered over the mottled floor soundlessly, Slappy's pocket bulged and I hid it with my arm. "Carrie! Is he really alive?" Rhonda squeaked and followed us.

"It's only the shadow playing a trick on you, come on," I found the door to the staircase easily, for we had passed it long ago. Rhonda and I crept silent as mice down the sick-brown steps and into the looming hazy kitchen, the stove waited for us like the mouth of a black iron monster. Quickly whispering goodnight to each other, I lingered behind as Rhonda hurried away from us, and Slappy told me where to find the cupcakes Madame Louisa had ordered for herself.

Chocolate frosting decorated my lips and I licked it away sleepily, it felt so strange to be warm and full in my bed after wandering the icy dark corridors of the morgue for half of the night. Outside it had begun to rain, water glinting on the tips of scarlet-colored autumn leaves like beads and fluttering them to the black shelled dirt of the earth. Slappy was restless at my side, I know he wanted terribly to begin his trouble, and I was still dazzled by the glass bottles, wondering why he wanted to take them, what kind of liquid was inside, it was too glassy to be water.

"You will see," was all he told me, climbing down from the bed and pulling the vial from his pocket, leaving me alone with the rain lapping at the windows. In my nightmare I was returned to that freezing room, all of the glass bottles clinking to the floor and shattering, the yellowed water inside trickling to my feet and seeping through the skin of my heels, making me feel wooden, like a marionette. I couldn't move, and I fell into a puddle of the oozing liquid, a medicinal stench burning the back of my throat, stiffening me, putting me under a terrible spell, and all of my limbs became immobile. Slappy came to rescue me, his feet crunching the shards of glass, and when he kissed my dulled lips the awful wooden stillness was drained from my body.


	5. The White Satin Evening Gown

Chapter Five ~ The White Satin Evening Gown

* * *

><p>Slappy's consuming and disorienting presence in my life had caused me to forget entirely about the luncheon party Madame Louisa was throwing for prospective parents that afternoon. She would plan the parties twice each month, when all families seeking to fill a gap in their hearts were invited. I had never attended a party before, but Rhonda said it was like being lined up the way county fair blue-ribbon chickens were, just so the mommies and daddies could get a good look at you and decide if you were ugly or if you would make too much noise in their home. The girls were given fresh new silk dresses, which looked just as our school uniforms did, only there were more frills and ribbons, and the amazingly white fabric blinded my eyes like snow. The boys were given midnight-navy and white suits, with little matching sailor hats trimmed in navy lacquer, I couldn't wait to watch Peter sit at the dining table and pop the seams of his pants!<p>

I didn't dare tell Slappy about my nightmare, my heart still felt dry and haunted from that terrible woodenness that poisoned my dream arms and legs. I had been frightened of waking up and not being able to move, but Slappy was there, silver-gray light from the clouds outside shining through the rain-streaked windows on the veneer of his face, smiling down at me, and I'd been so happy to see him I threw my arms around him, they weren't like marionette arms at all! The crystal glass bottle sat on my desk, emptied of its peculiar yellow liquid, but I didn't ask what he had done with it, I only slipped into my new innocent dress and brushed out my tangled hair. Hopeful parents would begin arriving at ten o'clock that morning, and visit with us until lunch was served. It was such a dreary Saturday, I hated Saturdays, they filled me with languor and slowness and I just wanted to sleep through all of them.

"Will you take me with you today? I'm really dying to see how the lunch party turns out, I'm sure it will stop everyone's blood cold!" Slappy spoke to me from the bed, perched there like a gentleman with his hands folded and the red carnation in his pocket glowing.

"Of course Slappy, I don't want anyone looking at me while I'm all alone," I fashioned the ribbon around my waist and then looked through my jewelry box for another to tie in my hair.

"Use a red ribbon, I like red better with your pale hair," Slappy commented as I rummaged through the tendrils of colored ribbon. I obeyed him in silence and strung the ribbon around my head like a bloody scarlet finger.

"Okay! Let's get this show on the road!" I giggled, and collected him in my arms. I wanted to seem cheerful for Slappy, but my stomach fluttered with butterflies and dizziness surged in my head. I was so nervous I thought I would either be sick in the hallway or collapse down the stairs, but Slappy pinched me and sang me a funny song, I knew if anyone didn't want me I would always have his attention.

"There you are, wretched girl! You were supposed to be in the kitchen at eight o'clock to get your breakfast! Now you've missed your chance, our guests will be arriving any minute," Madame Louisa greeted me, her hard face coated in malice and pride. Her dress matched mine, only the white silk was so much finer, and she had long, see-through lace sleeves that ended triangularly atop her wrists, it reminded me of a wedding gown, and took away the hideousness of her old age.

"That's fine, Madame Louisa, I'm not that hungry anyway," I heard Slappy snicker as I told her this, and if I really wanted food I could have just stole back up to my bedroom to get a delicious cupcake!

"Look, Crybaby Carrie brought her stupid dummy with her, of course. No one's going to want her as long as she's carrying that thing around!" Julia sneered at me from her place on a cushioned chair, Harold and Peter on either side of her, stitched tightly into their sailor uniforms.

"Oh look, it's the Captain of the SS Ugly and her two ship mates, Beef and Porridge!" Slappy cackled at them all, but moved his mouth as though I was the one controlling him.

"Ha ha, like that really hurt my feelings! So Slappy, why don't you tell us how you, Carrie, and Rhonda got along last night? Did you sleep well on that cold dead floor?"

"I could sleep well anywhere, four-eyes, but Carrie here certainly enjoyed herself, she found a room with a bed and cupcakes! If you lock her over there every night it wouldn't matter, she'd still sleep better than you!"

"I don't believe that," Julia muttered, an envious shine coming to her eye, but as Slappy went on irritating her, I noticed that Rhonda wasn't there, and feared that I was responsible for her absence. Had the coldness of the morgue made her sick? The guilt collected so heavily in my heart I turned to Madame Louisa for an answer.

"Oh, she said she wasn't feeling up to meeting anyone today, and would much rather help Mr. Grammel in the gardens," Madame Louisa said coldly and then shooed me away, turning back to the antique gilt mirror where she was primping herself.

I stood there puzzled, and then tiptoed over to the enormous velvet-curtained window that showed the entire front grounds. The gardens were empty of humans, only rain-soaked flowers, starving hopping black crows, grass damp with mud and fallen moldering leaves lingered there, water dripped from the speckled stone benches and no footprints outlined the wet dirt. Where was she? Had he taken her out to lunch, maybe? I thought it wasn't fair; I pouted and pulled away from the curtains, slumping in a dining chair until the parents began to arrive.

Everyone was taken by Slappy, amused by his elegant waist coat and puffy red carnation, and the aristocratic carving of his hair and face, how human-like he was! How big and green and serious his eyes were! How sweet I looked alongside him, as if I were his little bride. I saw Julia scowling at us many times and felt immensely satisfied.

"Look at all these suckers! Why don't they just get plants?" Slappy's voice rattled in my ear, he was so enjoying the attention he received, but I kept him away from the adults in case he wanted to kick or bite them.

"This child is such a darling, and with her dummy, we'd be getting two delightful additions to our family!" a woman dressed in a cheetah-printed jacket and tight black satin skirt fawned over Slappy and I, dragging her husband along after us who seemed unimpressed with me, and quite fearful of Slappy. "What do you think, Carrie dear? Coming to live with us? Oh, we could dress you up in the finest little outfits, and Slappy here too would get an entirely new wardrobe! Oh, don't you think his charming suit is a bit musty? Don't worry dear, I'd have it cleaned and pressed like new, of course!"

She wouldn't stop prattling in my ear, and whenever another wishful parent tried to approach us she'd bump them with her bony hip and lead me elsewhere, asking which color curtains I would want for my room. I couldn't imagine living with this woman; even her clothes were as loud as she was! I pictured the furniture in her house, everything done in animal print, which I hated. Would my room be leopard or zebra? It would be awful! Slappy would hate it too!

"Yeah right lady, like we'd want to come with you! You'd probably skin us just to make another tacky outfit for yourself! At least your husband here has the right idea and keeps his mouth shut!" with a twitch of those malicious lips, out came Slappy's voice, cold and harsh and wholly pleased with himself. The lady stared at me as though a monstrous, putrid sea plant had suddenly sprouted from the top of my head, and was sloshing poison at her expensive high-heeled shoes.

"George, honey, come on, let's go and get some more of that cake," she darted away from us, and I could see her husband was glad to follow and be far from our company.

"All right, everyone! The children would like you to join them in the art room; they have some wonderful paintings to show you!" Madame Louisa clapped her hands together to get everyone's attention, and the murmurs floating on the air quietly died down. "Here at Rose Hill Orphanage, we have a magnificent teaching program, and offer lessons in studies such as music, art, history, mathematics and literature. Our children are well-read and finely cultured and always offered the best resources in learning," she fluttered her hands as she spoke and led us all into the art room.

We had done the paintings weeks ago, for Madame Louisa actually hated letting us use the art room, she didn't appreciate anything creative and mostly kept the paints and craft supplies locked up. As she flung open the doors like a movie star leading a private tour around her glamorous mansion, the gasps that stemmed from the throats of the adults curled together in the air to become a scream. I think that a woman actually fainted into the surprised arms of her husband, who dropped his slice of coconut cake. Julia, Peter, Harold and I pushed through the crowd to see what had caused them to be so aghast and disgusted.

My painting had been left alone, but that was because I had done a portrait of Slappy. All of the others had been coated thickly in black paint, whereupon Slappy created his own majestic works of art: the orphanage burning with Madame Louisa laying dead in the garden, alongside Mr. Grammel and Rhonda; and Julia, Peter and Harold screaming for help through the flames of tightly locked windows. Another of the children in the playroom, with Peter's fat stomach torn open and all of his entrails snaked at his side in a pool of blood; while Julia & Harold hung from the ceiling fan above him, their necks crooked and broken by thick jump-rope. He had also decided to paint more self-portraits of himself, the green acrid eyes staring out at us from the tar-like black canvases; and across the gray walls he had spattered dark red paint, so that it looked stained with dripping blood.

"Oh, God!" Madame Louisa sobbed dryly, her hand clawing across her heart. At once she turned to look at me, and death glittered in her eyes, but I knew she wouldn't reprimand me in front of everyone, she wanted them to think she was mild-mannered, sweet as apple pie. "I apologize," she began slowly, and shoved me gently out of the way so that she could lock the doors and hide the horrific paintings from view. "It seems someone has wanted to play a little joke on us, and this someone has a certain dark, at times tactless sense of humor! What crazy things these children can come up with!"

"I felt inspired, and the other paintings were so boring! I think mine are much better!" Slappy shouted from my arms, and some of the adults laughed along nervously.

"Now, now," Madame Louisa chuckled too, but the pitch-black stones of her eyes told me I would be getting a dozen whippings that night, when she was free to transform back into her demon self and there was no one to see how twisted she really was. "I think it's time we let the children play, and you are invited to play along too, of course! Lunch is almost finished, so go on and get to know our little angels better. How about hide and go seek?"

I ran as fast as I could from her, I felt the wind slice through her fingers as she reached out to snatch my long swaying hair. I knew the best place to hide; it would be in the white quietness of the laundry room, in the great big washing machine. Maybe I'd stay there for the rest of the party. But to my dismay Julia chased after me, her scuffed patent shoes kicking my heels, trying to trip me. She cornered me into the fresh-smelling silence of the laundry room.

"You're really sick! My painting was the best and of course you were jealous! You're using that dummy to trick everyone here! You aren't special at all, you're just making everyone think you are because you have him!" she spit into my face, and then grabbed the purple rod of a broomstick. "You get into that washing machine right now! I'm going to trap you there!"

"Put the broom down, four-eyes!" Slappy snarled back at her like a dog, he was fighting to get out of my arms so he could have a go at her, but I clung tightly to him.

"Stop making him talk for you! You're pathetic, you rotten witch! Now get in the washing machine!" Julia screamed, and hit my arm with the scratchy bristles; it felt like a mane of dead ragged hair. "Get in!" she then hurled the purple rod against the temple of my head, and the light in the room crackled, I felt the surge of blood like a sea behind my eyes, and Slappy cried out in anger as I dropped him and spun around wildly.

"I've found them! Look, they're in here, playing with the dummy! I don't think they're feeling sick," a tall, black-haired man opened the door to the laundry room, through my blurred vision I saw copies of him smiling at me, his face was warm and broad and welcoming, so I smiled stupidly back. "Wait, I think this one might be getting woozy, too, just like the others,"

I didn't understand what he meant, who were the others? Had they been smacked across the face with broomsticks too? I reached down for Slappy and was suddenly on the floor beside him, the tiles felt so slick and cool I wanted to sleep.

"Sweetheart, can you hear me?" the man's furry hands curled beneath my armpits, and I cried desperately for Slappy. "Don't worry sweetheart, I'll get your dummy," I had never been spoken to so kindly by a stranger, and I started to cry. "Oh, what happened to you? Did you and your friends eat something bad? You're all falling out on us!" his arms were sturdy and comforting as a house; I wanted to be rocked to sleep in them. Sleep sleep sleep was all I wanted.

"I don't have any friends…but Slappy," my voice sounded faraway, tiny as a clover. The man positioned Slappy so he was laying across me, and I wrapped my arms around his wooden neck and sobbed.

"Oh god, now the woman, Louisa, is flailing about too!" the man's wife came into the room, there were double watery images of her as well, and her bewildered voice made my head throb with pain. "Look at these poor dears, I'll get this one, she's slumped against the washing machine, look at her!"

Stunned, I glanced back to see mirrored visions of Julia, crumpled over with the broom sticking in her stomach. My tears were hushed instantly and I began to laugh, so coldly I sounded just like Slappy. I hoped she was dead, I hoped everyone around us was dead, plopping down to the ground like flies, whatever was happening, I hoped it killed us all.

"Sweetheart, don't go mad on me," the man squeezed my shoulders as he carried me up the staircase, and asked me to point with my foot the way to my bedroom. "Don't worry, I'm a doctor and I'm going to find out what is causing all of you to be so sick,"

"I feel so dizzy! Help me! I feel like I don't have blood!" I heard Peter moan from his bedroom, and a chill surfaced across my skin, grazing it with goosebumps. When Slappy and I were in bed, I turned to gaze into his large sparkling eyes and knew he was to blame for their agonizing pain.

"How is she feeling?" the man's wife came softly into my room, and I laughed again, because I thought she must have just dumped Julia into her bed, rolled her over like a sausage!

"I think she's a bit delirious," the man smiled again at me, and his wife sat at the edge of my pillow and began to stroke my sweaty hair. "Can you tell me your name, sweetheart? And your dummy's name too?"

"I'm Carrie, this is Slappy, nice to meet yah!" I cackled, trying to sound just like Slappy. My head ached so badly I thought everything should be funny so it wouldn't hurt me.

"It's very nice to meet both of you. My name is Richard, and this is my wife, Vanessa. Now Carrie, I need you to tell me if you've eaten anything or had anything to drink that tasted strange," he spoke as his wife's cool, thin fingers stroked my hair, the pain in my head was dulled by her tender and icy fingertips.

"No, Madame Louisa has been starving me. I missed breakfast this morning because I was late and she yelled at me. I don't feel sick; it's only my head that hurts because Julia hit me with that broom downstairs. That's how it always is here, and how it will always be,"

I watched torment creep into his face, he was so overcome by it that he drew back and dabbed at his beautiful blue-brown eyes. His wife clutched at his hand and seemed to be communicating something secretly through touch. "Carrie, thank you for telling me that. I am so sorry for all you've had to suffer. I'll be right back sweetheart, I have to check on the others, but my wife and I have something wonderful to tell you,"

When he had gone the pain sprung dully from my forehead and I relaxed into my pillow, Vanessa's fingers had sifted back into my hair, but I was too shy to look up at her, so I closed my sore eyes and clutched Slappy's frozen hand in mine. I heard her whisper in my ear: "You're our favorite…" among the moans and torturous cries of the children through the peeling walls, and kept my eyes shut, pretending to be dead.


	6. The Guests

Chapter Six ~ The Guests

* * *

><p>It was embalming fluid thick in the veins of the children and Madame Louisa. The doctor, Richard, had been mystified by it. He and his wife had remained in my room all through the afternoon and night, in the dim filtered light while they thought I slept, I heard them both muttering about how the fluid could have poisoned them in the first place. And then it was discovered—their clothes had been soaked in it, their brand new party outfits were doused in invisible magic that crept into their veins and kissed the angel blood, stopping it cold. Vanessa had scooped me out of my frilly dress, I still pretended to sleep, and handed it to Richard so he could inspect the snow-white material.<p>

"Darling, do you suppose the children were playing in the morgue? You would think that woman, Louisa, would keep the doors locked to that awful place!" Vanessa sat upon my bed again, the mattress receiving no pressure from her feather weight. I cracked my eyes open and could see her wedding ring, the diamond emerald-cut and dazzling white, hinted with the palest yellow. It glittered against the dark wallpaper with light from the hallway; she was speaking to her husband through the bright ajar door.

Richard came back into the room; light leaked in after him and made golden slats across my bed. "Carrie's clothes aren't stained, I'm sure she was smart enough to keep out of a place like that,"

"Can you imagine, right next door to where children live, there is a bloody morgue? It's unheard of; we have to get her out of here immediately!" I listened to Vanessa and knew she was twisting her wedding ring around her piano-key finger. "The other children were lucky to have you here! Louisa should be on her knees thanking you, she was blessed enough to have you here as well. It was a miracle you could save them all," at this, I heard Slappy groan lightly at my side.

"That woman shouldn't be running an orphanage," the heavier weight of Richard's body was suddenly upon the bed, next to his wife, they both reached for my clammy hand. "We'll be back in the morning, sweetheart, after you've rested. You'll see, things will be so much better, you'll have a new life,"

"Yes darling, we promise to take you away from here," Vanessa whispered, and soon I felt her warm lips pressed to my milky forehead.

I felt sick, I wanted to scream. I couldn't go with them, why did they even want me? I was a terrible child, a stupid one, a bad little girl. I didn't want to bring trouble into their perfect lives. They were so like angels and saints, and I would never be good enough to belong to them, I would forever be among weeds and dirt and could never reach the stars they were suspended from. As I heard the click of my door shutting, I began to cry again, for the pain had come back into my head, crawling behind my eyes like a snarled vine of thorns.

"I'll get her for this; I can't wait to get my hands on that little brat!" Slappy roused in the darkness, bringing back the memory of Julia and the broomstick. I rubbed the jeweled left temple of my head and found it was roughly swollen, tender to the touch, like a pinprick. "I can't believe my plan didn't work!" he was beating his tiny fists against the wall, and I pictured in my head that crystal-glass bottle, the yellow shard of liquid inside.

"You didn't have enough," I told him sweetly, but still he punched and kicked at my wall, his furious silhouette bobbing wildly.

"No, I did! It was that sneaky doctor! He ruined my perfect plan!" Slappy snorted, the thud of his wooden fists splitting my head right down the middle like a ripe coconut.

"I think he is wonderful," I whispered through the blinding sheet of pain, and Slappy went limp at my side, saying nothing for the rest of the night.

In the morning, Madame Louisa came sluggishly into my room and demanded I take the breakfast meals to Julia, Peter, Harold and Rhonda. I was to push around a rickety cart laden with the silver trays; the large wheels reminded me of the spindle from _Sleeping Beauty_. Of course there was no tray for myself. Madame Louisa was still dressed in her moth-eaten, mint green silk nightgown, a velvet cape squashed around her shoulders, and collapsed into my bed when I rose from it, landing atop Slappy with her meaty arms and belly and then disgustedly shoving him to the floor. My head still ached with pain, but I smiled and thought it would be best to leave her alone with him. I hummed to myself as I strode down the dusky hallway, picking up a few mouse droppings and sprinkling them into Julia's bowl of oatmeal; it looked just like chocolate chips! I was glad to find that everyone was still enchanted with sleep, spread in their beds groggily with drool-lined mouths hanging open, but Rhonda wasn't in her room when I delivered her tray. I crept inside and touched the books on her desk gingerly and opened her closet to stroke all of the pretty clothes she wasn't allowed to wear during classroom hours. I found a black velvet dress that bore a ghastly rip up the middle, ending at the scalloped white collar, so that you could move the garment like a shredded mouth if you held on to each sleeve. Why would she want to keep this? I trembled and put it back into the dark corner of the closet, remembering Slappy had Madame Louisa all to himself, and I'd already left them alone too long.

Purple lipstick decorated her slumbering face. Slappy had written his name across her forehead and cheeks, and drawn vulgar-looking faces on every patch of yellow skin, a lolling tongue illustrated her wide, manly chin. And then the horrible woman turned over in her sleep, and smeared the artwork into my pillow! When she spread on her back again, her face appeared as a hideous blob of purplish mush and my laughter awakened her, I quickly swiped the lipstick from Slappy's clenched hand before she could see.

Madame Louisa considered me with black ice eyes. "I know you had something to do with this, Carrie. Why are you the only one unaffected?" her voice was thick and drowsy from the drugged rapture floating in her veins. "I'll make sure those people cannot have you. I will rip all of your papers up, and it takes months to process copies of them. You don't deserve happiness, Carrie. It was a mistake when you entered this world, your parents favored to die than to raise you,"

Richard and Vanessa came again to see me, as promised. I didn't tell them of Madame Louisa's cruel words, for I had come to believe them anyway. We sat outside in the gardens, a fresh scent of rain held in the air by the dripping trees. Water shimmered in the grass like dewdrops, and dead soaking leaves and petals formed a star across the cobblestones. Yellow leaves so thick in the deep grass, I held Slappy close, staring and staring at the glittering bank of leaves, wanting to stay there forever.

"Your bruise is quite garish, it's sticking out, almost like the horn of a unicorn, only on the wrong side," Richard stroked his fingers through the hair above my ear and smiled. I had seen it in the bathroom mirror earlier that morning, through a sheet of tears; a gray-purple bloated moon grew from the cracked side of my head, sticking out through the blonde hairs. I looked more of a freak than ever.

"It doesn't matter, she's still the loveliest child here," Vanessa petted the top of my head. "When we saw you, Carrie, with your sweet little dummy, you seemed so lonely, but special, we thought you were a doll at first!"

I couldn't bear to tell them what Madame Louisa had done; she'd burned up my files right in front of me with her white jeweled matches before they had arrived. "This is where Mr. Grammel found Slappy, here in the garden," I said this dreamily to myself, the bed of leaves rustled by the wind before my eyes. It had never occurred to me how Slappy had found his way here, or who had dumped his poor body into the grimy wet leaves.

"You really love Slappy, don't you?" Richard took Slappy's hand to examine it, and suddenly his fingers were tightly held within Slappy's wooden ones, I watched in horror as the pale tips bloomed to crimson.

"Slappy, let go!" I screamed, his little hand had become a claw, and I was sure it would cut Richard's clean from the wrist. Panicking, I pushed him to the cement ground but still he hung on to Richard, his brow slanted so that the eyes were evil. "Slappy, please!"

But Richard was strong; he seized his hand from Slappy's grasp and then massaged the sore, bright red knuckles. I held my breath as I looked down at Slappy, so pathetic and limp upon the hard sodden ground. His eyes twitched, and if he were able to cry, I know I would have seen a tear slipping down his varnished cheek. I wanted to crawl into the leaves and let the worms eat my hatred.

"Carrie, dear, are you all right?" Vanessa wrapped an arm around my shoulder, which was trembling.

"It's fine, sweetheart, don't be upset. I know how dummies work; sometimes the lever can go a bit wacky. It isn't like Slappy is alive," Richard chuckled, still massaging his distorted hand, but I only gazed down at Slappy miserably. "Carrie, you don't really believe he's alive, do you?" his voice became serious, and I did not respond.

"Oh, I'm sure the other children have made her think that! Louisa is terrible for letting them torture this poor girl!" Vanessa rose from the bench, her heeled boots crunching the leaves beside Slappy's dismayed head.

"We are going to have a talk with her, right this instant. Carrie, please stay here with Slappy," Richard squeezed my shoulder.

The sun glowed through the flame-colored leaves without warmth. I collapsed to my knees and apologized to Slappy, resting him across my lap as I plucked wet petals that stuck to his glossy head. He wouldn't speak to me. I bent my neck and cried into his shoulder, knowing what Madame Louisa must be saying about me. She would tell Richard and Vanessa that I would only grow up to be crazy, that my grandmother had gone crazy and walked into traffic, and now I was beginning to show the signs too. She'd tell them that my parents had gotten themselves killed. My mother and father had their own business, growing some kind of sleepy drug I wasn't to know about, and one night a man had come to our house, wanting the drugs, there was an argument, the shine of a knife. She'd tell them I had come from weeds and poison, she would make them see how filthy and worthless I was, she was so good at that.


	7. Just Delicious

Chapter Seven ~ Just Delicious

* * *

><p>Despite what ugly things Madame Louisa told Doctor Richard and Vanessa, the two still came to visit me almost every day, sometimes Vanessa visited alone when Doctor Richard was working at the hospital. I knew that Madame Louisa had destroyed my files, and it would now take months for new ones to be printed and mailed to the orphanage, which meant Richard and Vanessa could not take me away until they had signed them. To make those months sweeter Vanessa would bring me story books and puzzles, and cakes and pastries she had baked herself, and new dresses and shoes and even my own pocketbook. It was white patent leather with a long glossy strap, like a cowboy's rope. Even though I knew I didn't deserve it, I admired how it gleamed in the light like water and began to keep my secret things in it—the diamond heart brooch Slappy had given me, and his pocket card with the strange writing printed upon it. During the night I would slide my fingers over the slick, hard glinting surface and place it beside the bed, my treasures safe inside a seashell.<p>

Slappy's clothes now had the odor of cool, wet leaves. No matter how much perfume I sprayed onto his body it wouldn't cover the scent of the leaves, and I was incessantly reminded of the afternoon I shoved him into the bed of dead drenched decay. He was speaking to me again, but I knew he would never forgive me for choosing Doctor Richard over him. I tried to explain that I didn't want Slappy to hurt Doctor Richard, because soon he would take us away and give us a wonderful and exciting life. Slappy had looked at me coldly and said it still wouldn't be any better, because nothing ever really changed for good.

When Doctor Richard and Vanessa visited, we would gather in the moldering gardens outside and watch the yellow leaves fall, or have tea and shortbread in the large freezing sitting room with the white globed ceiling that no one ever used. Slappy was always with me, once I put a shortbread cookie into his placid, dulled mouth which greatly amused Richard and Vanessa. Slappy had spit out the sugared treat with disgust and complained, but of course they thought I had made him do it, and began to tell me I should become a ventriloquist. The books Vanessa bought me included instructions on how to disguise my voice and keep my lips prim as I spoke. I shoved most of them under my bed, I could never imagine taking Slappy before an audience, he would only embarrass me.

Julia would spy on me when Richard and Vanessa came, wherever I was I could feel her sharp little eyes burning into my back. She was envious of the presents I received, and of the attention showered on me day after day. I felt a twinge of sorrow for her, so one evening I offered her a butter cookie from the elaborate tin box Vanessa had given me, and she furiously slapped the tray out of my hand, sending the star-shaped cookies down the staircase to crumble. Slappy tried to kick her but she ran away laughing.

Because of her jealousy, Julia gave Peter and Harold secret missions to humiliate and torment me. They liked to creep into my room at night and steal Slappy while I slept. So far I have found him dressed in my school uniform with lipstick on his mouth and cheeks; once in my frilly peach-colored underwear. I have found him inside of the shiny black upright piano in the music room, stuffed into the ovens of the kitchen, sitting atop the dining table with our breakfasts ruined around him. Of course Madame Louisa blamed me each morning she rose to discover him glaring at her, and I blamed Slappy for my punishments, because he could have easily walked on his own back to my room! Slappy was enjoying my punishment, and I was beginning to grow bitterly angry at him.

I didn't bring Slappy with me anymore to my lessons. Rhonda sat beside me, while Julia, Peter and Harold tossed spitballs at our hair and broken pencils at our backs. When Madame Louisa wasn't looking we passed notes to each other, I asked her what had happened between her and Mr. Grammel, and every day she refused to tell me, she said to even write it down was sinful. And then one day in the hall before lunch, she told me to come to his office at three o'clock the next afternoon, and crouch down to peer through the keyhole.

"But that's during my music lesson!" I cried without thinking. I liked music lessons, because it was the only subject not instructed by Madame Louisa. Her mother, Madame Frieda, taught music. She was so old, and always in a drunken stupor, coming out of her stale musty bedroom to give only music lessons, she was brittle and sweet and floaty. There was such a sea witch gloom that covered Madame Louisa, but none of it darkened Madame Frieda. She liked Judy Garland and Billie Holiday, and had a great stash of records, and she smiled at me while I sang, even though she was half-deaf, she smiled at me from a whole other world, without pity or ridicule. She called me dearie while Peter and Harold hurled drum sticks at my ankles and Julia drooled upon her clarinet.

"It would be all right to miss just one lesson, and I thought you really wanted to know," Rhonda said to me coldly, clutching her yellow notebook tightly to her chest.

"I do want to know, I'm sorry, I've just never missed a lesson before. Of course I will have others. I'll come tomorrow" I attempted to smile but Rhonda whirled around, her long black hair swishing across my notebook, and dashed to the privacy of her room, not caring to have lunch.

My stomach hatched with butterflies as I feverishly imagined what I would see. Would it poison me too? Would I be sinful for looking? What was a sin, really? I didn't bother to ask Slappy, though I'm sure the things he had done must count as sins. I tossed my books onto the bed beside him, where he rested in an icy stillness, and left him alone to go and have my lunch.

I was awake all night, my hands shaking excitedly as I rolled around in bed, annoying Slappy. When Peter and Harold crept in I shot up and growled at them, which sent them running away screeching in fear. I laid back down and gazed at the ceiling, dreamily thinking of Rhonda, feeling queasy with razor-sharp edginess. During breakfast I spilled my glass of orange juice into my oatmeal, Peter stuck his finger in it and said it looked delicious, so I gave it to him. I was too anxious to eat anyway. Restless, I daydreamed through all of my lessons until I found myself crouched down at Mr. Grammel's office door, glancing through the burnished gold of the keyhole.

Already my palms were sweating, I peered into the dark and saw nothing, only the outline of his wooden desk. I heard Rhonda's voice then, saying could she please open the curtains. Gray light illuminated the room and filtered through the keyhole, I could see her standing miserably by the enormous pale glass window, holding her thin left wrist with dismal fingers. I couldn't locate Mr. Grammel anywhere, but heard his heavy work boots stomping around the room. He finally came into view, his bare chest glinting in the gloomy, dim light, his black demon tattoo filling the frame of the keyhole. I gasped and toppled backwards, my heart bursting in my chest, not wanting to see anymore, but I slowly squatted down by the door again, my spine tingling uncomfortably from hunching over, my legs beginning to ache and cramp as I watched.

Rhonda's dress had been removed; she was stretched out across the desk with only her long hair covering her trembling body. Mr. Grammel came and roughly pushed it away, then his fingers did a trickling dance down between her legs. I covered my mouth to hide my ragged breathing as Rhonda began to make animal sounds, and then Mr. Grammel crawled atop her, bucking like the dogs my grandmother used to own, until he too was grunting like some awful animal. When he stood again, he smiled handsomely. Rhonda was crying, her legs glimmered with something sticky, and then she became still as a doll. I was angry; I felt bile warm in my throat. I felt my limbs had been dirtied, I felt betrayed. I could only think of how nice Mr. Grammel had been to me before, how the flesh of my arm sung when he touched it. Why had he chosen Rhonda over me?

I flew back to my room and bolted the door, Slappy sat on the bed with his revolting glassy eyes. I collapsed beside him and hid my face in the pillow, then sat up and began to punch at the feathers softly inside. Slappy watched me curiously.

"Have you lost your head? You're lucky you aren't a dummy, when we lose our heads they usually come back to us with an extra chip!" he snarled with laughter, but I looked at him with disgust and collapsed against the pillow again, pretending to be in a grave as I lay and glared at the ceiling. "What's eating you? Hope you haven't caught any termites from me!" Slappy laughed so hard I thought he could be having a seizure. I wanted him to shut up.

"I saw Mr. Grammel with Rhonda today. They were doing something that looked strange, like swimming atop each other, only there was no water, so it was all very queer," my tongue felt bitter as I spoke, but Slappy was silenced and entranced by what I had told him.

"Tell me about it," he said coolly, propping himself against the wall and listening with rapt interest.

"Well, first Mr. Grammel didn't have any clothes on, and then he took off Rhonda's dress. I thought she must be so cold, with the light from the window pouring over her, and then he slid his hand down, between the little part between her legs,"

"Show me,"

I stared at Slappy, who was engrossed. I felt faint beneath his stern green eyes. "It was like this," I took his cold hand and put it atop my belly, then slowly lifted the waist of my stockings and slid his hand down to the small hollow between my legs. All the while his eyes were hard and transfixed on me. I felt a tingle there, and a sweet softness flowered in my head. My ears hummed, I felt liquid and flushed and terrified. I gulped and withdrew his clammy hand and squirmed away from him.

"Was that all?" he was still absorbed, I had never seen him so dreamlike and relaxed.

I breathed heavily and nodded, although there had been so much more. "Slappy, I'm so dizzy," I whimpered quietly, but he only stared at me with hunger in his eyes. Shame burned my skin but it was exquisite. Sinners must feel this way, falling into a deep black pit but kissing every fine shadow that passed on the way down.


	8. The Attic

Chapter Eight ~ The Attic

* * *

><p>"There is a thunderstorm coming, I want all of those windows upstairs closed now!" Madame Louisa's voice groaned somewhere from beneath the staircase, hidden and irritated. The cook had absentmindedly burnt her long, old gray braided hair while preparing our dinner and the putrid scent of singed, unwashed locks had made everyone retch. We'd been allowed to open all of the windows; they had shuddered and creaked horribly as they were unlocked, to let in the ethereal autumn air. Now there was a sick green shine to everything inside, coming from the dying leaves and grass, the dampness gathering in the air and the fragrance of coming rain birthed a haziness in my head. I ran through the dim hallways where the green polish spilled through the open glass and felt dreamy as I shut and latched the window, sitting upon the cushioned bench and waiting for the rain to arrive.<p>

Rhonda found me this way, and I wished the rain would come then and sweep me away. I had not spoken to her for an entire week, and I hadn't dared go back to visit Mr. Grammel's office again. Quietly she sat beside me and stiffened her hands across her wrinkled dress. She wanted me to look at her, to speak to her, but I fixed my pale gaze out into the courtyard, watching the greenness shiver as a wet wind decorated the leaves and bushes.

"Carrie, why are you avoiding me? Didn't, didn't you see what he did to me?" her voice cracked, her pitiful hands fumbled with her dress. The first silver drop of rain splashed against the window, I imagined it was a tear from Rhonda. "We have to tell someone, please Carrie,"

Rain fell heavily and I turned away from it, glaring at Rhonda who had become so brittle, almost like a ribbon I could snap between my fingers. "You should like what he does to you, I wish he would do it to me," I said this solemnly, I felt the words flat upon my tongue like stones.

"What?" Rhonda's sloshing eyes grew large, the stones were cast against her and scraped bleeding wounds into her skin. "How, how can you say that? Carrie, don't you understand? Can't you see what he's done to me?"

"Why did you steal him from me? He was supposed to love me!" I grew hot and flushed and felt stupid saying this, but in the pit of my stomach there was still a wretched jealousy from seeing the two of them together. Rhonda shrank away from me, her face red and puckered like a baby's.

"Carrie…you don't understand, it isn't love, what he's doing…please Carrie, please help me," she reached for my small hand but I ran away from her, glaring back over my shoulder at her crumpled frame, the rain soaking the glass behind her weeping head. I didn't want to be near her, I felt disgusted and envious when I looked at her, and my mind so frustrated and splitting into pieces because I couldn't think straight, I felt like a blackness was spreading through my brain.

I shut the door to my room and sank to the floor against it, my eyes shut against my stockinged knees as I scratched at my hair, wanting to get through my scalp, to untangle the thoughts there and sort them into black and white and red piles with clean note cards describing each dream or nightmare or blankness. Curiously I wondered why Slappy wasn't snickering at me, whenever I came to the room in a fit he thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. I peered up at the bed to find he wasn't there, nor was he sitting in my desk chair. The blood in my veins ran cold as I stood, and my heart filled my throat so that it was hard to breathe.

In the hallway, the sound of the rain magnified and hammered against the large glass windows, the anxiety bubbling at the crown of my head burned all through my limbs as I listened. Beneath the sound of water falling there was a childish giggle muffled inside of a small pink fist. I looked up to see Julia standing outside of her bedroom, sneering at me with a secret delicious to everyone but me. She wore her flannel nightgown and had her glasses off, so that her eyes were little and squinted.

"Where is he?" I cried out, but she pouted as though she couldn't possibly know who I was speaking of and floated back into her bedroom. I caught her before she could lock the door, and flew at her, pinning her deep into the ugly chestnut-colored quilt and watching as her shoulders turned purple where I held her. She kept giggling feverishly and I wanted to slap her. "Where is Slappy!"

"It's a lovely night to gaze out from the rooftop, isn't it? You can see all the gardens from there!" her lips curled and she pushed me off, threatening to call Madame Louisa if I didn't leave. My heart thudded violently in the cage of my throat, I was immobilized, a cold fearful sweat doused my shivering arms and legs. Slappy was on the roof, in the middle of the thunderstorm! Julia yelled at me again but her runny voice couldn't reach the dark river of fear I had been sucked into. I gave her one last hateful look and tore from the room, preparing to climb the rickety, nail-studded attic steps in my bare feet to rescue Slappy.

The attic was a realm of shadow and dust, my footsteps gleamed in the powdery grime that had gathered so thickly across the splintered wooden floors as I searched for the second set of stairs that led to a secret, doll-sized window. It too was caked with dust so that not even light from the rain could shine through. I held my hands out before me in the blackness to find my way, when I touched the fine dust that felt soft against glass I pulled the window open and the rain deafened my ears. I climbed out into it and my skin was stung, pinpricks and needles of blue rain that punctured and dissolved. The roof was slippery like eelskin, for a moment I was transfixed by the blue water and lost my footing, but through the sheet of cerulean rain I could see Slappy, tied to the chimney with another jump rope. I began to cry and the tears were lost in the rain crested upon my cheekbones, I climbed to where he was, slipping and grasping desperately to the shoddy roof. Thunder shook and rattled my entire body; I feared Slappy would be struck by lightning and used all of the fragile strength in me to reach out and grab his soaking hand.

"Slappy, I'm so sorry!" I whimpered through the storm, knowing it was impossible for him to hear me, but his eyes blinked as though he were mystified by the rain that splashed against his cold cheeks, he was thankful to find me in the glittering sea with him. "Slappy, come on!" I undid the thick rope around his waist and neck and tucked him beneath my arm, clinging with one hand to the brick-red shingles of the sodden roof. Every time I slipped I grasped Slappy protectively to my chest, but waited until a thunderclap and found we were still safe, not yet falling to our deaths. My hair blew wildly across my face and into my mouth, the blue rain stinging the backs of my legs and arms. Slappy was so heavy but I would not let him go, in my head I said it over and over: '_never let him go, never let him go' _until we were safe inside of the stuffy, dust-clotted attic, dripping and shining and freezing and alive.

"Slappy! Are you all right? Please, tell me, say something!" I clamped the window shut and dust stirred into my heavy drenched hair. A little sneeze escaped me as the dust collected in my nose, and Slappy grinned innocently.

"Gesundheit!" he cackled, and I wrapped my arms around his body, so cold and wet it made me shiver.

"We have to get you dried off, or your suit will be ruined!" I squeezed the glut of rainwater from his shirtsleeves and pant legs.

"You're the one who is shaking; the rain doesn't bother me at all. There's a blanket over there, go wrap yourself up in it and let's stay up here awhile. I like it up here," Slappy took in his gloomy, antique surroundings happily as I fetched the blanket and spread it upon the groaning wooden floor. I curled up upon the old wool coverlet, bunching my knees to my chest like flowers to keep from shivering so. Slappy came to lay beside me, offering the warmth he could. "Did you see? The rain was blue. I've never seen rain like that," he said this to himself, as if he were drowning in another time. I thought of all the years he must have been alive, all of the lonely gray thunderstorms his thoughtless owners must have thrown him into.

My body was tiny enough to fit against his, and I curled against him, laying my tired head across his sogging chest where the water darkened my hair. I slid my hand into his and gently pressed my fingers into the cold scoop of his palm. "I love you Slappy," I whispered, his green still eyes reflected the moon. "I'll protect you, I promise. I am yours forever. I will protect you forever,"

He said nothing but gripped my hand in his. The moon and shadows played across the wooden slanted room, blue light from the rain glimmering through my smudged fingerprints in the glass, I had wiped away most of the dust upon the window, allowing the light to creep in. Clouds flitted across the white eye of the moon and shut it, smoky black storm light polluted the attic, and then was extinguished, moonlight seeped in again across my arms and poured ocean-blue light against the walls. Wood creaked like a lullaby and I shut my eyes, Slappy's chest becoming my pillow.

"Well, what do we have here?" Mr. Grammel had intruded; it had been his boots making the wood creak, not the blowing wind. I froze, my arms clasped around Slappy and eyes sprung open, waiting. "Carrie? You awake, sweetie pie? What are you doing up here, all by yourself?" he stepped closer, and Slappy and I were revealed to him in the watery moonlight, tied together like snakes. "Oh, I see. So, you and Slappy have become real good friends, eh? You two sure look cozy," he nudged at my bare foot with his work boot and I shuddered. I wanted to hurl myself down the stairs and cling to Rhonda, to apologize for the awful things I had said to her. Mr. Grammel's voice was low and steady, but a nervous edge trembled beneath his words. He went on speaking to me secretly. "You ought to thank me for finding him, and fixing him up for you. I did it just for you. I could have tossed him in the garbage can, and you would have never even met him,"

He squatted down at my back, and turned me over roughly so he could take a look at me. His eyes were bottomless, two black furry wings of lust lodged into his head. I didn't know who he was then, I tried to shrink beneath the itchy blanket, down below the floorboards, he was frightening and possessed. I swallowed as he took Slappy's hand and ran it teasingly over my chest. "I think Slappy likes you very much, I think he wants to see more of you, touch more of you," he made his fingers scrape against the lace of my pajama top, tapping on the pearl buttons. Mr. Grammel was becoming excited as he massaged Slappy's hand up and down my shivering body, a lurid shine leaked from his eyes. In my mind I sank beneath the floorboards and rotted there.

"Well, Slappy is just going to have to wait his turn!" he suddenly howled and became savagely alive, taking Slappy and heaving him into an unlit dusty corner of the attic. I screamed but he covered my mouth. I cried then, I knew Rhonda had been right, he was a monster, and what he offered was not affection but oblivion. He was sweaty, his body surging with heat and appetite, grunting like a pig in my ear and clumsily undoing the hard buckle of his belt, struggling through his wild ecstasy. But his heavy shuddering weight was thrown from me, I heard his body thud against the wooden floor, and Slappy's quick shoes, the astounding, baffled cry of a man seeing a dummy overpower him. Again Mr. Grammel was pushed, and I felt faint as I heard next the rusty ragged nail that grew from the cracked floor like a weed slice pleasingly through the hair and flesh of his scalp. He let out one last sound, a sad bray, like a wounded donkey, and his nostrils and limbs stiffened with death.

"Slappy!" I whispered, tears glinting in my ravaged eyes. He looked proudly and blackly down upon Mr. Grammel's ruptured body and then at me, the engorged greenness of his cruel gaze softening as he observed me, I held my arms out for him and he joined me again upon the blanket, where we had been so sadistically disturbed from our blue sleep. Blood trickled against my heel and I drew my foot away from the contaminated scarlet pool, shutting Slappy into my body like a pearl and listening to the hollow lull of sleepy, immaculate rain.

"Carrie, you shall be my bride," a voice hissed in the fluffy blue darkness, coming from the white nest of my arms. Slappy desired my hand in marriage, the wind lifted my reply like a petal from that gloomy attic, and we slept.


	9. Halloween

Chapter Nine ~ Halloween

* * *

><p>From behind the surface of the glossy insipid mirror a new creature stared out at me; her cheeks dusted with round pink roses and fairy glitter, her mouth painted to look wooden and latched, as though she needed someone to pull strings to make her talk and sing, and her eyes fringed with black, thick-rooted petals, so that she looked eternally surprised if not a bit eerie. She wore a poofy dress of sparkling pink lace and tulle, a little wooden cupcake girl open and shut her dream-gray eyes out at me from the looking glass. For Halloween I had wanted to be a marionette. Vanessa and Rhonda were thrilled to help me with my costume and to do my makeup, Vanessa even offered to doll Rhonda up as well, but she didn't feel like going to the party we were having that evening. Slappy sat upon my bed, a wreath of violets upon his head, and watched me in the mirror.<p>

Above our heads, Mr. Grammel's body was stuffed into a peeling green trunk where bricks were kept. He oozed and rotted beneath those heavy bricks, sure to never be found until someone had the desire to build another garden, wishful thinking that wouldn't be spun until the next spring. No one ever went up into the attic, Madame Louisa being too lazy, and Madame Frieda being too frail; the cooks weren't allowed above the first floor, there was no one to pry into the dark past of the attic. I smiled as Vanessa dribbled another slick coating of pink lipstick across my mouth, like frosting. Slappy assured me the smell of Mr. Grammel's decomposing body would never haunt us, he had done well to keep the corpse from being discovered.

"You need a bow in your hair," Rhonda smiled and touched my shoulder, then hurried around the room to fetch one. When Madame Louisa had announced that Mr. Grammel had disappeared queerly during the night, she'd almost fainted with relief at breakfast. Across the table she had caught my gaze and then steadily consumed her oatmeal. With Mr. Grammel gone, she'd been allowed to piece herself back together, and after I had apologized she'd become happier and vibrant, we did our schoolwork together and she even started to come to music lessons with me. Julia couldn't tease her anymore about being a crybaby, and so she looked after us with distaste and envy. Still, I would catch darkness seep into Rhonda's clear, queen-like eyes whenever Madame Frieda played a jilted love song on the piano, or when she snuck away to read torturous romance novels hungrily in the shadows of the library. Softly she returned to my side with a peach-colored ribbon whispering across her hands, and sweetly tied it into my flaxen hair.

"Oh Carrie, you look just perfect! Why, you and Slappy could be a little married couple, you look so like a doll," Vanessa giggled and fluffed my hair about my shoulders, she had curled loose waves into the strands earlier and they glinted like pearls in the mirror.

"We are engaged," I announced, not daring to show them the antique diamond ring Slappy had stolen from Madame Frieda's jewelry box, it was even bigger than Vanessa's ring, older and more elegant too. He'd also stolen a mildewed, sheer lace nightgown from her boudoir that he wanted me to wear on our wedding night.

"Isn't that sweet," Vanessa tickled my nose and then pulled back the chair so I could straighten my dress. I had strings tied about my wrists and ankles, and wore fair-colored ballet slippers. Laughing, I began to twirl around the room as though a mysterious figure above brought my collapsing marionette limbs to life.

"Let's dance, Slappy!" I picked him up in my arms, Vanessa began to hum a song I recognized, 'Cheek to Cheek' from the film Top Hat, and feverishly I whirled and danced, forgetting my strings, clinging fast to Slappy and closing my eyes when I felt him fasten his arms at my waist. Rhonda perched herself on my bed and watched. I tangled myself up in the strings attached to my ankles and fell down, Slappy sprawled on the carpet beside me, and began to laugh hysterically, I felt elated when Rhonda joined me. It felt so real and warm, like we could be sisters having a slumber party, and Vanessa our beautiful, youthful mother.

"Girls! You do know that the party is downstairs, we cannot contain our joy in this little room!" Vanessa helped Slappy and I from the giddy floor and dusted us off. "Rhonda, dear, are you sure you don't want to come to the party? I would be happy to help you with a costume," she offered, but Rhonda shook the long silk rope of her black hair and vanished to her bedroom to be alone for the night.

It was Richard and Vanessa's idea to have the party; Madame Louisa wanted nothing to do with it and kept to herself inside of her cramped, musty room. Strewn across the dining table were trays of sugar cookies shaped like pumpkins, moons and ghosts; bowls of dripping caramel apples, and frosty glasses of apple cider. Cobwebs clung to the walls and paper skeletons ghastly drifted from the ceiling. Music played from the scratchy record player; 'Puttin on the Ritz' a static glitzy echo, Peter and Harold were both blindfolded and attempting to pin the makeshift tail onto a picture of a red-eyed donkey plastered over the wall. The two of them were dressed as apes with matted fur, their shared favorite animal. I spied Julia sitting crossly on a green cushioned chair, dressed as a blue fairy, she had made her wings from forgotten satin pillowcases in the linen closet. I wanted to tell her I liked her costume, but she glared at Slappy and I and focused on Peter, who had toppled to the ground and was clutching his exposed stomach with lively humor.

Richard waited as I descended the stairs, and scooped me into his arms to tell me how like an angel I looked. I sensed a forlorn unease about him, and tried to smile through the glittering black lashes hooding my eyes. He returned it brokenly. "There's something I need to speak with you about, would you like to go into the sitting room?"

I thought of leaving Slappy to enjoy the party, but caught Julia watching us greedily and clutched him tightly in my arms. The music faded as we strolled through the entrance hall and into the freezing sitting room, where my ruffled dress sparkled in the dark. Uncomfortably I sat in a winged chair, the costume was beginning to itch my skin. Richard sighed and took my hands into his, Vanessa stood sadly in the wide doorway.

"It appears there is going to be difficulty in gaining custody over you, as Louisa refuses to send me copies of your papers. And now another obscurity has presented itself, I have to travel to London and will be gone for two months at least," he squeezed my cold hands in his burning ones, and glanced miserably to his wife. "Carrie, I wish there was a way we could settle this now, and bring you home this instant. But it is going to take a little while longer than I hoped. Dearest Carrie, will you be able to wait for me? Vanessa will come every day to bring you presents, and I will phone from London as much as I can, fighting to make you ours,"

I nodded silently, and he drew me in to his arms, Slappy pressed against his chest as he hugged us both. I knew that I could wait for him, that I would wait for him, and that he wouldn't abandon me. How lucky I had been to capture the heart of someone so kind, decent and truthful. Over his shoulder I smiled to Vanessa, who wiped her misty eyes and shyly beamed back at me. Richard caressed my hair, tucking it behind my ear and then kissing each glittering cheek.

"Now, you go and enjoy the party! Slappy, you too! Have a riot!" he tickled my nose as his wife had done, and with Slappy strung into my arms we scooted back to the decorated room, where Peter had consumed half of the cookies already. Harold licked at a caramel apple, the paper donkey tail trailing from the back his trousers. Julia was no longer in the cushioned chair, she stood behind the doorway that led into the foyer, and I knew she had been listening to Doctor Richard. Her eyes gleamed and the blue wings taped to her back were suddenly threatening.

"Don't you know, they are only lying to you? Both of them have decided that they don't want you, that you are not worth the wait, but they didn't want to hurt your feelings. I heard Richard on the telephone before you came down, he was talking to a doctor in London, he's actually transferring there! He won't be back for you," Julia's colorless lip curled up meanly as she approached. "They even made this party for you, just because they felt sorry. It's all a gimmick to distract you, in the morning it will be like a dream, and you'll be alone and forsaken,"

I didn't want to believe her, but the words pricked at my skin, and sick imaginings followed. Why hadn't Richard come to my room to help me get ready? Had he really been on the telephone, saying those awful things? It couldn't be true. Was his gentleness a mask? Madame Louisa must have told him everything terrible she could think of, and somehow gotten him to take her side. Before he and Vanessa stepped into the party room I had torn away from it, upstairs to my bedroom as tears streamed down my face and melted the shiny makeup away.

"Why do you always believe that little brat?" Slappy demanded angrily, shaking the garland of violets from his head. "We can wait for your doctor to come back! Don't listen to her, I can see that he loves you," he said this with a rotten taste in his mouth, a bitter taste of jealousy.

"I know Slappy, I know he does. No, I don't believe her. It's not true! Oh Slappy, I really hate her! I want her to die! She's just jealous! She's a pitiful, ugly BITCH! You heard me Slappy, I called her a bitch! I've heard Madame Louisa on the telephone, calling me that, 'No one wants that blonde little bitch!', I don't care that it's a bad word. I want Julia to die! I want her to suffer and feel pain, like all the pain she caused me, and you too, Slappy! I want her head cut off! And put onto a platter with worms!" my body heaved with anger; I tore the ribbon from my hair and looked at my stained, wrathful face in the mirror, like an ashen phantom. I kicked off my ballet shoes and collapsed into the bed, pushing my fists deep into the covers.

"What about your party?" Slappy murmured at my side, I could feel his eyes sliding over me.

"Who cares about the party, if she is there then it's stupid, and I don't want to go back," I sighed and turned to look at him, my fingers gingerly curling through his. "She ruins everything. I cannot wait until we are away from her. Let's pretend every night that it's our last night to spend in this awful place, and we can have our own party!"

Slappy's eyes grew hungry; his fingers twined in mine loosened their grip. "Go stand there, and take off your dress. I promise not to hurt you like he did,"

Fearful and dreamlike, I rose from the bed and drew my lacy dress over my head, the frills passing across my lips like blooming cuts. I did not know what fevers danced in his head, but my heart began to pound with excitement. I threw the dress to the floor, a crumpled heap of pastel ruffles, a discarded doll's dress. I shivered and covered the two flat poppies on my chest, which displeased him.

"Don't do that, I want to see you,"

I combed my tangled hair out with my fingers, it snapped palely with electricity, and stood freezing before him in my white stockings, fine goosebumps dotting the exposed flesh.

"You are my bride, my flower, my doll,"

I flushed and gazed back at him, letting him see the whiteness of my snow skin.

"Wait until I tell Madame Louisa what a pervert you are!" Julia shouted through the slit of my door, she had been spying as I undressed for Slappy. "Ha, that doctor will never want you now!"

"No, please!" I cried, feeling helpless and sordid. I tugged my dress from the floor, covering my blinding skin. Slappy was still perched against the wall, his marble still eyes staring with gluttony upon me. Suddenly they were evil and vivacious with attention, and he winked.

"I'll take care of her," he said, and was gone.

Richard found me in the library at midnight, reading a book of scary stories, snacking on popcorn and a glass of ginger ale. His face was twisted and sick with revulsion, the memory of what he had found churning his stomach as he bent to his knee at my side. "The child Julia, she is dead," he took my hand, the warmth of his skin had gone, but my flesh flared secretly and I offered the blazing wildness to him. "She was in the washing machine, no one knows how, how she fell in, or who started it, but her body was mangled, there was no way in heaven I could save her," he swept his hand over my hair, waiting for me to cry or gasp with fright, but I only shoved into my mouth a cluster of popcorn and turned a page in my book, kissing his black-haired head when he lowered it with the guilt of not being able to mend her bloodied tattered body. Slappy and I, we were almost free.


	10. The Bride

Chapter Ten ~ The Bride

* * *

><p>Julia's death had spooked Harold and Peter to the rotten core of their bones, weirdly causing them to elect me as their new leader in an attempt to atone for how terribly they had treated me before. Neither boy wanted to end up like Julia, who had spent her days dreaming torments and humiliations, and was bestowed the goriest of deaths. Rhonda went along with having me as the queen, having already had her turn as leader. Madame Louisa had gravely cancelled our lessons, saying they would be resumed after the Thanksgiving holiday. We were free to roam the orphanage as well as the morgue, which became a playground now, no longer a cathedral of punishment. Perished were those cruel games, I ruled with sweetness and gentleness, we brought daylight into the icy halls of the funeral parlor and put forget me nots into the rigid hands of stored corpses. I kept the doors to the art room unlocked, and there we drew pictures to give to the dead, pictures of where they were going, we imagined valleys of rainbows and crystal blue rivers, their hearts buried in butterfly wings, and banks of snow and roses and candy. We hoped our pictures would fill their stopped hearts, so they would not have to be alone in those austere marble caskets.<p>

Madame Louisa had grown terrified of leaving her room, she ordered the cooks to bring all of her meals straight into her bed. She was convinced whoever had caused Julia's death was also to blame for Mr. Grammel's sudden and unexplained disappearance. One morning she called me into her room, I sat at her dressing table with Slappy on my knee and she stuffed runny grits into her lipsticked mouth.

"I think I have it figured out, little miss. Ever since you got that dummy, we've had so much trouble around here. I still remember those gruesome paintings, don't you think I've forgotten! So embarrassed…I was so embarrassed that day! Since you've had him, you've become even more of a little beast, a sour little girl. I know you've had something to do with Julia and Grammel, I know it. I can't think of how you could manage to overpower them, you feeble little creature, but I know I am right, I know you are to blame, and I'll catch you before you can harm another one of my children!"

I stared mutely back at her, lowering my eyes to the food stains on her satin coverlet. She was slowly going insane.

"Do you think now that you have a little friend, you may do whatever you like? You stupid child, it is a doll made from wood and clay! It can't be your friend! There is no one in the world demented enough to befriend you. And now that you've spread your evilness, yes I can smell it on you, evil child. That piece of junk you cling to has filled your head with rotten nonsense. I can have you taken away, you know. I will call the authorities; tell them what you've done to that innocent child. I'll tell them to smash your precious dummy to get you to confess! And I'll get Grammel out of you too! You'll tell me where he is! I need him now, who will tend to the rose gardens? Oh, wicked, wicked child! Get out of my room now!"

I stood and pulled back the dusty velvet curtains of her window, looking to see it had begun to snow, and there was no reason for anyone to tend to the rose gardens, which slept deeply under the white earth. I wonder if she knew it was nearing December.

"Did you hear me, wicked girl? I said to get out! Take away that horrid dummy; I don't like him staring at me!"

Our realm of freedom and playing was slowly beginning to decay. Madame Louisa no longer paid the cooks, and so on a cloudy afternoon they took away the most expensive things in the orphanage and never returned, giving us a sad look before they shut the heavy oak door and seamlessly fell into the world we were too afraid to enter, to ask for help from. Vanessa was the only outsider to visit, and we did well to hide our crumbling kingdom from her, thankful for the cookies and cakes she brought, surviving on chocolate and sugar, which made our minds hyper and flighty and starving for more.

As leader I tried to keep up with our lessons, reading from poetry books and writing out long math problems on the blackboard which no one cared to solve. Rhonda preferred to educate herself with steamy romance novels, Peter and Harold devoured old comic books and swore to be super heroes, telling me there wasn't a need for mathematics and literature as they would be too busy rescuing damsels tied to railroad tracks or knocking out the bad guys who attempted to rob luxurious banks. You only needed to be street smart to enter that profession, they said with puffed out chests.

Days stretched out before us, filled with snow, feverish dreaming, languor and hunger. The snow grew to cover the entrance doors, so that Vanessa could no longer bring us sweets. We played games with Slappy, who had finally decided to reveal himself to Rhonda, Peter, and Harold. In my room at night, he told me they were our slaves, but he treated them fairly, and only mocked them when they were unable to hear his nasty words. We lived on water and crackers, sometimes opening the second story windows to scoop glimmering fresh ice into cups to make tasty snow cones. Peter's weight shedded drastically, we thought it was funny that we could now play music along his ribs and spine, all of us had a melody within our starving bones.

The loneliest, coldest times were during the night. Our heat had been shut off due to Madame Louisa ignoring the bills, it forced us some evenings to take shelter in the morgue, the freezing rooms were more of a comfort than the palace of ice that the orphanage had been transformed into. We had become shut away from the world, nurturing ourselves with pretend games and covering our frozen skin with forts made from blankets. Slappy couldn't understand our weakening condition, not being able to feel coldness or hunger. There was no food left for him to steal for us, and on mornings when we were too weak to rise it was he who opened the windows and collected the snow that would be our meal for the day.

So desperate we were for life, for something to crack the dullness that lingered in our heads, to warm our frosty, dreary bodies, that Rhonda began to plan a wedding ceremony for Slappy and I. I had showed her the stolen ring, the delicate antique loop of floral gold, the large snow-white diamond, and it had inspired her, she saw the wedding as our salvation, a burst of existence in our veins. Harold would be the priest, Peter Slappy's best man, and Rhonda the flower girl and my bridesmaid. There were no flowers, all had withered in the garden of snow outside, so she stole away a pearl necklace from Madame Frieda's bedroom and broke the tender strand. She would sprinkle the floor with loose pearls. As she helped me into the sheer nightgown, Rhonda whispered that she was sure Madame Frieda was dead, the inside of the room had been so musty and rank.

"It is my wedding day; I won't let that bother me!" I said in a rusted voice, speaking drained the energy of my brittle body. My reflection in the mirror showed a hollowed, ghastly bride; white lace and silk swallowing her skeletal limbs. I looked as if I had been rotting inside of a trunk for years, my cheeks were gaunt and pale blue, my collarbones collected dust, and my emaciated stomach was sure to groan all through the ceremony, along with Rhonda's. But we giggled and she handed me a bouquet of flowers made from yellow paper. It was time for the blushing bride to wed her daunting groom.

Slappy waited in the playroom, where the red Victorian wallpaper was peeling, and the moldering stuffed animals had been lined up as guests. The diamond glittered in his cold hands. His eyes grew selfish as I floated through the pearls scattered across the floor, he collected me in those green orbs which would forever haunt me. Peter stood gallantly behind him; Harold fixed his paper collar and opened a Bible that he had no intention of reading. Instead Slappy and I had written a vow to share between us.

"Everlasting. True love. I am yours. Even in death."*

Rhonda wiped a tear from her eye, Harold cleared his throat and Peter went scarlet as I leaned to kiss Slappy on the mouth, the diamond ring now fastened to my little bony finger. We would be together forever.

"Filthy girl!" someone suddenly screamed from the doorway, and I went cold with fear. Madame Louisa had attended the ceremony without our knowledge, and had watched Slappy come to life. She had seen our respect for him, our shared madness born of starvation. "So, it was the dummy all along, wasn't it!" she stepped into the playroom, her flesh still plump and healthy, but her eyes held the blazing hollowness of a woman gone out of her mind long ago. "You've tricked all of them into following you, into following this dummy! He is straight from the depths of hell, he is! I shall take him away, something I should have done in the first place!"

She lunged for Slappy and tore him from my lacy grasp, I screamed and fell at her ankles, clamping my teeth straight into the thin skin there. She yelped and kicked me away, and I cried for help, but the others only stood and watched in horror. I chased Madame Louisa out into the hall, tears streaming down my face and fingers clawing the dust she kicked up behind her. My legs ached from disuse, and began to cramp and burn, but I would not let her take Slappy away from me. Glass windows blurred at my side, the dizziness in my head blooming into a sick knot that stretched down to my stomach. She turned back and laughed, I could see Slappy biting her wrists, kicking his feet, but unable to break free from her clutches, her full-blown insanity. Quick as light she locked herself in the bathroom, I slammed into the door and pounded against it with my fists, weeping through ragged eyes, screaming through a rasping throat. Inside of the bathroom there were three marble tubs with tarnished claw footing, and the basins turning brown with grime and dust because we hadn't bothered to bathe for months. I heard Slappy clunk against the white basin of one of the tubs.

"Please, please give me back Slappy! Please give him to me!" I moaned pitifully into the door, slapping my palms against it, feeling my starved body giving up, my head flooding with blackness. I was so tired, so hungry, pale with death, sick with longing for Slappy. "Slappy please, please don't go away," I whispered, and collapsed to the floor, my head slamming hard against the filthy wood, I was taken away from the wickedness for only a short while.

I awakened to a night of blackness and falling snow, stretched upon a quilt that had been laid outside near the sleet-covered street. Groggily, I heard sirens and the shouts of men, and a hot roaring I couldn't identify. The back of my head ached, my legs still burned with pain. I lay splayed on the blanket, wondering how I had gotten there. My lungs captured the smoky, icy air and I shot up, remembering the days of hunger and restlessness, remembering the wedding, remembering Madame Louisa stealing Slappy away from me. I saw the orphanage in flames before me, and staggered towards it, my heart rattling inside of my chest.

"Hey! Where do you think you are going, you better stay back!" a fireman in a hissing yellow coat gathered me up in his arms, struggling to keep me from throwing myself into the burning building. "You can't go in there! The place is about to cave in, we can't put the fire out until more men get here!" he tried to explain, but I screamed and thrashed against his coated arms, thinking only of Slappy who was not at my side.

"Please! You have to save him! Please!" I looked around in the snow-bright dark for him, he did not linger in the shadows, nor did Rhonda, or Harold, or Peter. I was sure I would be sick although there was nothing in my stomach for me to throw up. "Please let me go! I have to get him, please!"

"This one is going crazy, she wants to go into the house!" the fireman shouted to another of his buddies, who was standing around idly with a shut-off hose dripping in his hands, the drops of water forming jutting icicles. I went feral with anger and writhed in his thick arms, but I couldn't escape them. "We could only save you and your teacher," he said to me, the words putting bitter frost into my veins.

Madame Louisa was there, laid upon a stretcher with drops of snow and ash delicately touching her forehead. She smiled as each flake fell upon her face, a play of fire and ice. I screamed for Slappy and she looked at me then, motioning for the fireman who held me to approach her. He went to her obediently, I could feel the heat of the flames bursting out of the glass windows through the gauzy nightgown Slappy had chosen for me.

"Lock this one away in an institution, I have money saved in my account, take it and use it for her, she's dangerous. There is no one who will come for her, so put her away. She'll only grow up to be crazy!" she coughed hoarsely, deep smoke clotted her lungs, and I could see then that she would die. I wanted to laugh and dance across her limp, ash-stained body. The fireman holding me gripped me tightly under my armpits and nodded. I screamed again and helplessly tried to escape. The bride on her ruined wedding night. Slappy lost somewhere inside of those flames, needing my help.

"Stop it girly, I mean it!" the fireman shook me roughly. I saw then the fire chief run out of the flaming building, his yellow coat darkened to charcoal black. He held nothing in his arms. Solemnly he approached the fireman who imprisoned me, I watched snow fall onto his seared mouth and soothe him.

"It seems someone started the fire in the bathroom, they used some kind of doll in a tub, which melted and spread fast,"

At these words, I could no longer feel the snow or heat from the smoldering doomed palace. All of the light in my world was extinguished, and sweetly I let the ash collect in my lungs and sing me into a sleep that I wished would last forever.

* * *

><p>*Carrie and Slappy's wedding vows were taken from the beautiful video game, Rule of Rose, which has been an enormous inspiration for this story. I have added 'Even in death' from The Mermaid Princess chapter.<p> 


	11. A Home for Peculiar Children

Chapter Eleven ~ A Home for Peculiar Children

* * *

><p>I was dragged away like a prisoner to a special home for feeble-minded children, far from the orphanage; Madame Louisa's now gutted bank account was able to afford a room for me there. After I had eaten the cold roast beef sandwich that was given to me, I slept for four days and nights without stirring, seeing Slappy's face in all of my dreams. Whenever I was awake, I never left the white-walled room, I remained upon the lumpy bed crying into my pillow, sometimes hugging it to my chest and wishing the coolness belonged to Slappy. I had a roommate, but I didn't know what she looked like, as I never turned my eyes away from the wall, or kept them open for more than an hour. There were other children I heard screaming, some running into doors or throwing things that echoed like a dog's bark into my ear. Burdened and woeful I slept for days, dreaming of the orphanage, of the snow that had encased us and shut us away, the incandescent world we had made all for ourselves, our snow cones and Slappy's blazing green eyes, our bones that caught the glint of winter light when we stood at the windows, the blankets we collected from each room and dragged to the morgue. Whenever I dreamed of the fire, I woke screaming, sure that my throat would begin to bleed from the howling grieving sound.<p>

The first thing they had done to me was chop away all of my hair. It sat, razor-edged and brittle pale, uneven below my earlobes. It felt as if they had cut away my soul, and at night I would reach my fingers to caress strands that were no longer there. I cried for Slappy, thinking how it would have hurt him too, my beautiful hair stolen from me. I knew nothing of where Slappy could be. The fireman had told me, after I had wept and beat at his smoke-stained chest, that there was no trace of a dummy in the house, not even in the bathtub where he was sure he had seen Slappy's ruined face. Rhonda, Peter, and Harold were found in the playroom, huddled together in a corner, they had tried to protect their bodies from the flames, and had been cooked like dolls put into an oven. My heart would never surface from the dark water it had been plunged into, never would I forget Slappy, Rhonda, Peter, Harold. I locked them in my memories and swore they'd never be hurt again. We were alive and dancing down the crumbling hallways forever. I swore that I would find Slappy, I knew that nothing could keep him away from me.

One night I woke from a warm dream of laying in the autumn garden with Slappy to find my roommate hovering above me, peering curiously into my face which glimmered with sleep. I pressed myself against the wall to be away from her, and she frowned at me. I saw that her hair had been cut as well, it was ruby-colored, ragged hair that curled dryly against her neck, scraping the tips of her thin shoulders.

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to startle you. It's just, you've been here for weeks and I've never really seen your face," her voice was wispy, I thought of a flower drooping to the soil, wilted by the rain. "I'm Cleo," she offered, and I squinted at her, unsure if I was still dreaming. "I know that you are Carrie," she went back to her bed and curled herself upon it, from the night light she kept at her side I saw the tiny frame of her body. I thought she must have been my age, but was shocked to hear she was fifteen later during my stay at the institution. "Why do you always cry for Slappy in your sleep? Who is he?"

I knew I was awake then, because my heart burned with pain. In sleep, I always lost that pain. Cleo must have seen through the bright darkness how my eyes withered.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. I'm so sorry, whoever he is. You always ask where he is. I hope you can find him someday," she smiled at me, a fragile butterfly opening its wings over her mouth, and burrowed down again into her covers. I couldn't see her silhouette, it was as if she disappeared beneath the blankets, and it was frightening to hear her ghostly voice speak to me once more. "You should come and meet the rest of us, we aren't so scary. You don't seem scary either. It's kind of nice here, as long as they don't drag you up to the second floor," and then she was asleep.

I listened to her shallow breathing, it was as steady as a lullaby, and wondered what was on the second floor. We lived in a normal suburban house, it was on a public street, a green shingled house with white shutters, so ordinary from the outside. When I had first arrived I thought I had been adopted by a desperate family, willing to take any child, no matter how haunted or poisoned with insanity they would turn out to be.

In the morning I saw how fragile Cleo was, skin white as chalk, taut as paper; her rigid porcelain face and tiny jaw, the birdlike cheekbones that haunted the dark blue beneath her eyes. I went to breakfast with her, and found a steak leaked its juices onto her plate, while the rest of the children got eggs and toast, and another girl, much larger, got only a grapefruit. Silently and amazingly I watched Cleo switch her breakfast with the large girl when the tight-lipped matron left the dining room. I couldn't understand why she would give up such a fantastic breakfast. After the long freezing month of starving in the orphanage, I devoured the scrambled eggs and four pieces of toast melted with butter and strawberry jam. Cleo poked at her pink grapefruit and then introduced me to the peculiar children around the table.

Kevin Harvey was immediately my favorite at five years old, white and silent as snow, who squeezed my hand beneath the table and looked at me with eyes wishing for a mother. Cleo said that Kevin Harvey preferred to be called by his full name, and that the only thing he liked in the world was reading. Whether he read quietly to himself, if he read enthusiastically to me, or if I read bedtime stories to him as we would do during the winter nights to come, he loved to fall into the pages and discover a world that belonged all to himself, a fictional world that was painless to endure. I would learn the reason he was in the institution, whenever he was upset he scratched himself savagely, leaving marks like the claws of a bear on his pale arms, legs and face. He would use his fingers, or a pencil, a toothpick, anything sharp he could get his hands on. Sometimes he would scratch others if intimidated, but never me.

Mandy, the large girl who Cleo had traded her steak with, loved eating too much. She was ten years old and heavier than the matron. They had not cut her hair off, it hung in two black pigtails down the lard of her shoulders. She liked to hide things in her fat, especially extra food, which wasn't allowed. She even liked to eat things that were not food, like dust balls and loose screws she found along the floor. When they wouldn't give her the food she wanted she pulled out her hair and tried to head butt anyone threatening her in the stomach. But she grinned at me, her red chin fattening like a turkey, and I saw the sad light in her eyes, the fork frantically cleaved in her stubby hand. I let her eat in peace.

The last boy at the table, who refused to look at anyone, was named Alex. He was skinny with dirty blonde curls, and Cleo muttered something about his fascination with male body parts. He liked to smell and lick himself, and my skin shivered with disgust and pity. He chomped on his toast and kept his eyes on the crumbs which fell on his plate.

Cleo was so thin because a doctor she'd been forced to see had diagnosed her as an anorexic and brought her lovely dark secret to the attention of her parents. I rolled the word at the back of my throat, like an arrow, anorexic, trying to understand. She cherished food and hated herself for it. She told me her body was something that needed to be punished for growing; she wanted to be small like me forever. I thought she must be the loneliest girl to exist, even lonelier than I was, if food and starvation were the only things she clinged to. But she liked my sympathetic eyes. When I would later give her back rubs at night, the first time I touched her I thought diamonds were stuck all over her, but realized it was only her bones cutting through the dry yellow skin. Looking at her made me want to cry, and that pleased her, she was satisfied that her body drew such a melancholic response from mine.

"I'm Carrie, I'm married to Slappy, who the matron says doesn't exist," I said to everyone, and Cleo began to clap for me. Kevin Harvey smiled and told me he liked Slappy already. With tears in my eyes I hugged him, wishing so much that Slappy was there, waiting for the shade of night to fall again so I could sleep to dream of him, to imagine his fingers at my neck, the green eyes glowing in the dark.

* * *

><p>I will be working on an original story for the next couple of weeks, but just wanted to let everyone see that Carrie and Slappy's story is far from over. Thank you so much for reading and I promise they will be together soon. xx<p> 


	12. Christmas for Peculiar Children

Chapter Twelve ~ Christmas for Peculiar Children

* * *

><p>It would be my first Christmas without my family, although it had never been an affectionate holiday for me before, my parents usually slept through the day and only my grandmother would give me a present, so I was not expecting the lavish, overwhelming amount of warmth and love I received from the other children and our new nurse, whom we called Mama. Mama came in to wake Cleo and I up at seven o'clock in the morning, as fresh white snow fell softly outside our locked window. She had sweaters knitted for us, a gray one for Cleo, which was her favorite color; and a lime green sweater for me, the shade so bright and dazzling I pressed my face into the fuzzy threads just to smell and feel her love wash over me.<p>

Mama had been my savior, nights I woke from bad dreams about Slappy, about the burning orphanage and the wallpaper curling away into flames and ash, it was her large, dark-skinned body I wrapped my arms around, listening to her sing me hush-a-byes as she petted my dry growing hair. Even Cleo would come and sit with us on my bed, hugging Mama too, and giving me the chocolate milkshake they ordered her to drink every evening before bed. I would return to the nightmare world in sleep, Slappy's melting face shown to me through a curtain of hissing fire, but deep in my heart I knew morning would come soon and the burning dreams would fade, and there would be Mama waiting to hold and soothe me.

She wasn't hostile or domineering like the other nurses, she fit so easily into our childish world, wanting to laugh with us, to tell us stories, to sneak in cookies and ice cream and then cradling Kevin Harvey to her chest after he had consumed too much sugar, keeping him quiet so none of us would get into trouble. Unlike the other nursemaids, she listened to our pain, she held us as we cried and wished to be elsewhere. At first, I was reluctant to tell her about Slappy, I had not spoken of him yet to any of the nurses. I knew that Mama did not believe me from the slanted gleam in her eye, but she listened to my story and clutched me tightly when I began to cry from missing Slappy so much.

"You girls really the only ones normal here, with hopes of some kind of future," Mama whispered to us one night after I had woke trembling and crying from another nightmare, Cleo sat at my back and braided my hair gingerly as I sipped the chocolate milkshake. "If you girls stop actin' so crazy, Cleo here need to eat a meal, maybe drink this milkshake for once, and little Carrie here," she squeezed me in her arms "need to stop believing dolls can talk to her!"

"Ooh, Slappy would be real mad if he heard you call him a doll!" I stuck my tongue out at her and then blew bubbles into the creamy shake.

"Is that so?" Mama glared at me but then her big white teeth shone as she smiled and tickled me, sending the milkshake dribbling down my hands. "Slappy would get mad at me? Well darling, I don't see him nowhere round here trying to defend himself, and if come near me I'd bust his skinny little head in two!"

I withdrew from her arms and fell into the pillow, my hands still sticky with chocolate. Mama knew instantly her words had hurt me and sighed, stroking her large hand across my braided hair, moving loose wisps behind my ears. "Little Carrie, I know you loved your toy very much, but you got to stop believing he's real, that he's coming back, because he's not ever coming back. If you want to get out of here, you got to stop talking that your dummy is alive!"

It hurt to have Mama's love but not her faith. How could she not believe me? I showed her the wedding ring, I showed her Slappy's card with the strange writing, the diamond heart brooch; all of his treasures I clung to. She shook her head at me like I had been the one to steal them and tucked me into bed. I began to remain in my nightmares, just so I could see Slappy, I let smoke decorate my lungs and watched my body as it caught fire, through the dreamy flames I searched for him and clasped his melting body to mine as we were scorched and burned away.

For our Christmas dinner we all wore our new knitted sweaters, each of us a fluffy colored creature excitedly woven round the table, Kevin Harvey was clothed in royal blue, which I knew to be his favorite. Mandy's rose colored sweater was taut over her stomach, pink was her beloved color, I smiled at her and she pointed to the roast beef that Mama had cooked for us. Alex's sweater was a rich, dark purple, huddled in a pool around his gaunt body. Cleo sat beside me, a fragile gray flower, and poured herself a glass of water while dumping her food onto Kevin Harvey's plate. I floated out of myself for a short while, no longer burdened or melancholy, and watched us together, my small peculiar family. The warmth in my heart exhausted me sweetly; I felt tears pierce my eyes, I could see the drops glittering.

"If only my daddy Slappy was here," Kevin Harvey said wishfully at my elbow, I drifted back into my body and looked upon him smiling. It was our favorite game to play, that Slappy and I were married and Kevin Harvey was our son. The little boy's eyes would soar and glow with life whenever we pretended Slappy was coming to rescue us. I could never tell him it wasn't true. I gathered him close to me like a rosebud and tickled his pink nose.

"Yes, your father is Slappy and he will come to take us away very soon!"

"This would be the perfect Christmas feast if it didn't have so many calories!" Cleo announced quite snottily when she saw my arms wrapped around Kevin Harvey. Mandy teasingly told her to shut up and flung a pea at her, which smashed greenly against the bare skin of her neck. Cleo screamed the juice would leak through her flesh and make her fat, and scooped up pasty mashed potatoes from my plate, chucking them at Mandy's new sweater. Kevin Harvey squeaked with overexcitement so I pulled him beneath the table, taking what was left of our plates, and we ate our Christmas dinner sheltered there while Cleo, Mandy and Alex had a food fight above us. The matrons said our ice skating field trip would be canceled but then Mama came and promised she would still take us. When we emerged from our hiding place the walls were streaked with green, yellow and brown gunk, Kevin Harvey ran over to lick the food-stained walls while all of us laughed.

"Ugh! Look at all of the calories seeping into my pores!" Cleo had removed her gray sweater; she wore only a thin white tank top which gripped her skeletal figure tightly, all of her bones decorated in nasty, runny morsels of food. I asked her once what's a calorie, she said a tiny invisible meaningless speck that actually means the entire world. Calories were her fixation; I had begun to understand that what she couldn't control about herself she measured in calories and fat and directed her fear towards any crumb that entered her mouth or remained on her plate.

"I'm gonna have to make three new sweaters for you naughty children!" Mama swooped down on us, we huddled under her wing as she led us away into the sitting room. There she read us Christmas fairytales and our eyelids drooped warmly, Kevin Harvey was draped across my lap sucking his thumb, while Cleo did her ghastly exercises in the corner. I knew she was listening to the story because her limbs did not work furiously, instead she raised her legs limply and dreamily until they were still over the soft floral rug.

Mama kept her promise and took us ice skating the day after Christmas. She also had knitted new sweaters for Cleo, Mandy and Alex; her poor fingers were bent and cramped with ache. Tiredly but with adoration in her heart she sat on a snowy bench and watched us all float around the frost-rimmed rink of ice. The trees were lacy with snow and frost, we were skaters gliding beneath the silent white sky, ice coating our noses and fingers and dreams. While I skated I thought of Slappy, and Doctor Richard, and Vanessa. The cold wind and sun on my face reminded me of them. Wherever they were, they had my love, no matter how lost I was I knew we would be together again. I pretended Slappy was watching and twirled for him, laughing madly to myself.

Cleo skidded to my side so we grabbed hands and spun around, Kevin Harvey joined our circle, Mandy and Alex skated by themselves, slowly and less gracefully. The sun glinted on the ice, kissing it; the pale white trees shimmered and whispered with cold secrets. I tossed my head back and clung tightly to Cleo and Kevin Harvey's frozen hands, I had never felt so happy or free. The white bliss of sunlight was so warm on my face, melting the edges of my chilly skin. It would last forever, wouldn't it?


	13. Witch Burning

Chapter Thirteen ~ Witch Burning

* * *

><p>Never did I listen to Mama's warnings of not talking about Slappy. Each night when I gave Kevin Harvey his bath I would do my imitation of Slappy's voice, and we would count down the days until Slappy would come to take us home. I drew pictures of him during our coloring time, and when we were allowed outside time I sat on the wooden swing that hung from a withering oak tree and sang quietly to myself, hoping the words would somehow find Slappy's ear and tell him where I was. I paid no attention to the nurses that watched me, thinking they must be scribbling something else down on those ratty old clipboards, their fountain pens gleaming in the sunlight.<p>

Alex went home in the springtime, just as flowers began to tremble on the green vines that covered the front porch of our strange house. I heard Mama say they were just giving up treatment on him. Mandy followed after losing ten pounds, her mother squeezed her shoulder, the fat around it evaporated, and I heard her promise Mandy a new bathing suit. She'd be back to normal by summer, and I felt a sting of jealousy as I thought of glittering swimming pools and delicious languorous days spent playing in the deep hot grass.

It happened while I sat in my bedroom, giving Cleo a backrub and singing Slappy's lullaby for her. She had just been forced to drink one of the chocolate milkshakes, which I learned contained an enormous amount of calories, protein and fat, it explained how my cheeks now popped out and my belly had gotten soft. Cleo wept onto her needle-like knees while I traced my fingers over her pitiful back, wishing there was something more I could do to comfort her. My arms were raised in the air, preparing to wrap around Cleo and embrace her, when two male attendants I had not seen before burst into the bedroom and looked at us both with deeply bloodshot eyes.

"Which one of you is named Carrie?" the largest one spoke, his voice like a whip of thunder. I shivered and told him I was, and his eyes twinkled queerly. Suddenly I wanted to bury myself in Cleo's back, cling to the frame of her bones. She looked up from her crying and was alarmed by the brutish men, quickly fastening the buttons of her nightgown. "All right now Carrie, you're to come upstairs with us,"

"No!" Cleo screamed, and gripped my hand in hers. "You aren't taking her there! Mama! Help!" her voice scorched her lungs so that Mama skidded into our room with Kevin Harvey following close behind. "Mama, they want to take Carrie upstairs! Please don't let them!"

"Hey, we are acting on orders here. Lucille, if you want to keep your job you better get out of the way and let us take this little girl upstairs," the men stepped forward and made to grab me, but Cleo threw herself in front of me, accidentally knocking my cheekbone with her knobby elbow.

I held my burning cheek and looked upon the scene before me, disorienting and bewildering. What was waiting upstairs? Why was Cleo so terrified of my going there? Mama backed into the corner of the room and clutched Kevin Harvey to her chest, and began to cry. Kevin Harvey stared at her, confused, his eyes filling with childish fear, and then he turned in her arms and reached for me, unable to free himself from Mama's grasp and becoming exasperated.

"Don't take my mumma! No! Don't take my Carrie!" he screeched as one attendant pried Cleo away from me and pinned her to his chest, threatening to hook her up to a feeding tube. She writhed against him and cried out for the other attendant not to touch me. I was frozen as I sat on the bed, I didn't feel his rough hands seize me under my arms, nor did I feel the wood of the stairs bump my knees as he dragged me to the second floor. Cleo and Kevin Harvey's screams melted into static, my heartbeat slowed to the still surface of a lake.

I was marched into a room of pale green and gray, where a silver bed was waiting. There the two men helped me climb into the chrome bed, my teeth chattered as I settled down into it. Machines buzzed around me, I was confused by everything, a flood of nurses entered the room with white gauze around their grim faces. My ankles and wrists were imprisoned; a strange metal casket was inserted into my mouth with two plates on either side of my head. I felt my body turn to wax from the fear. The attendants murmured amongst themselves, but their voices dissolved when I felt the brightness start at my ankles, creep to my thighs, sting at my chest and crackle at the crown of my head. I was encased in a sheet of blue fire, my body writhing and burning, my mind clamped shut. Fiery blue light split down my eyes and spread into my limbs like a sickness. Noise jolted in my ears, monsters hissing and licking, I knew smoke was shooting from my cooked body, my skin blackened from the flames.

Finally, finally, the blue fire had gone, my body limp and light as ash. Attendants removed their gloves and left me to float in the metal crib. My mouth was so terribly dry I knew an ocean could not quench my thirst. The thoughts that had burned away as I was electrocuted came back to swim through the drone in my head.

_Why am I being punished? Slappy, where are you? Please, make them stop, it hurts! Slappy, please make them stop! Somebody find Doctor Richard, he is a real doctor, he will show you that what you are doing makes you all devils! Slappy, why are they doing this? Is it because of you?_

* * *

><p>Upstairs the days passed before me as liquid, each dissolving into the next, and myself floating carelessly in and out of time. I could no longer tell hot from cold, dark from light. There were other children crammed into the one bedroom with me, but I never bothered to learn their names. Some were too disturbed to form a coherent sentence, and some were kept chained to their beds because of their violent outbursts. I would lay across my stained bed and watch globes of dust dancing in the air, settling delicately onto my bruised skin. Sometimes I was given a rubber ball to play with, this was usually before my shock treatments, and for hours I would sit propped against the wall, bouncing the bright red ball lethargically with my hand. My mind grew sluggish, my appetite diminished, my blood went stale and sour in veins which were slowly decaying and turning to glass. Some days I heard Kevin Harvey downstairs, screaming and throwing himself against the wall below me, it echoed and shook the linoleum floor. I would lay down and shut my eyes, trying to communicate to him, wishing him not to harm himself any further, that I wasn't worth it. Cleo tried once to sneak upstairs and see me, but she was caught before I could lay eyes on her. I heard her wailing in the hallway and sobbed into my pillow, so angry at myself for putting her in danger. Cleo's disregard of the rules had forced her out of the children's home, and the last I heard of her was one of the doctors saying she had been admitted into an eating disorder program at the local hospital. I prayed for her recovery every night.<p>

The shock treatments increased as I still persisted that Slappy was alive. Doctors would circle round my bed and demand for me to admit that I was a liar, that Slappy had never existed. If they angered me enough I would spit at their pale green gauze bodies, and promise Slappy would soon have his revenge on them all. Each time I was lowered into that cold metal bed, the electricity flared through my limbs and I swore my bones split like tree branches and shattered into dust. I felt myself contort and burn, my hair tinder and shooting the flames to my toes. When the treatments were finished I felt pitted and hollow, the air around me was gaudy with sickness. I never felt the tingle of refreshment the attendants insisted the treatments were doing.

At least they did not take away my treasures. My white patent pocketbook was scuffed with dirt, but inside the diamond ring, the heart brooch and Slappy's card were kept spotless, save for a moldy shortbread cookie which I put into the drooling mouth of the little girl next to me. She happily munched away as I closed my eyes and held the sparkling heart, embedding it into the skin of my palms. Slappy, Doctor Richard, Vanessa, Rhonda, Harold, Peter, Cleo, Kevin Harvey, Mama. I repeated their names like a prayer and felt the sharp edges of the brooch cut into my fingers. I missed having snow for meals and eating it while wrapped in every blanket of the orphanage. I missed Cleo taking baby sips of her pea soup, demurely sliding her elbow across the table so that the bowl clattered to the floor and she wouldn't have to finish it. I missed coloring with Kevin Harvey as we were sprawled across that floral rug, making pictures for Slappy. I even missed Alex stealing away a black crayon to keep in his pants. But as I began to struggle with remembering which name belonged to who, Slappy's memory remained pure and vivid in my heart. I would love him forever, but I knew if I spoke again of him in such a fervent manner, it would mean lowering myself into that bed of blue fire. So I began to deny his existence, although I dreamed of him every night, and the shock treatments grew less and less intense, my blistered mind bloomed white as a flower once more, no longer drowned in the harming fire.

After two lonely birthdays had passed, I rose from the chrome bed to hear what I had been longing, that it was time for me to be released. I had no relatives, but there were plans for me to move to an orphanage in the next town.

"See? You've gotten so much better during your stay here. You don't even talk about that doll anymore. I think it will make you real happy to know that you will be leaving us very soon. I hope you will tell everyone how satisfactory our methods of treatment are,"

My mind whispered that all of them would be rotting in hell, their eyes and hearts gouged out by Slappy's hand, but I smiled innocently and nodded my head, hiding my hands behind my back. Mama and Kevin Harvey were no longer in the house, so I had no one I loved enough to say goodbye to. Although I was scared, I was driven by my hunger to run out into the world and begin searching for Slappy. My eyes of innocence would hide the wickedness and sin that flourished inside of me as I exited the house that had been my prison for two years. Where I was going no longer mattered, I was free from the snare of that nightmarish metal bed, they had not burned the witch out of me.


	14. Born to Die

Chapter Fourteen ~ Born to Die

* * *

><p>I remember my first foster home much better than I remember the orphanage I was sent to after leaving the children's home. The orphanage was nothing like Rose Hill, not at all old and haunted and elegant, instead it was a sleek gray building near the city, all of the rooms perfectly square shaped and furnished with metal shelves and beds. The days I spent there were like the metal: solid, cold and unfaltering, the same routine each day. That's all there was for me to remember, hard gray furniture, polished floors that squeaked and blinded me by their cleanliness. I never spoke to any of the other children; they moved round me like ghosts in their gray dressings as I shut their phantoms from my mind and focused on my escape. It came quickly and magically dark in the forms of Sebastian and Elizabeth Oz.<p>

Sebastian Oz was a famous photographer and philosopher, and he and his wife Elizabeth were looking for a child to show off, a sweet little doe-eyed reason to throw big parties whenever they felt like it. As they entered the steel-gray playroom of the orphanage and saw me sitting sourly alone with my long golden hair, the hair that had taken me years to regrow, that was now brittle and thin from being hacked off numerous times at the children's home, why they must have thought I was Rapunzel, and they fancied to take me away from the fairytale garden so I could bring them all the more wealth they desired.

During our interview I kept my hands clasped and said nothing, listening as a psychiatrist told Sebastian and Elizabeth the insane bedtime story of my life and that he now believed I was mute because of my ordeals. I couldn't fathom why they didn't just ship me off to another nuthouse, but the psychiatrist thought it'd be best for me to have an experience in a normal American family home, it would be beneficial. Being a mute child, I thought for sure these beautiful people filled with incandescent chatter wouldn't want me. I peeked and saw a gleam of light pass between the eyes of Sebastian and his wife, and knew instantly what they were thinking. _Perfect. She won't tell our secrets. _I wanted to be swallowed up by their darkness; a voice within me said I deserved it. As I took Elizabeth's ringed hand I felt my fingers ensconced in sin, and held on tightly.

Roses and champagne and my own nude skin. I will always remember their mansion by these things. White roses in antique glass vases, champagne glittering at night, Sebastian's camera sucking up the cells of my skin. Elizabeth showed me to my room, the bed draped in white sheets and real silk curtains fluttering by the open window. There were four different gilded antique mirrors upon the floral walls, and as Elizabeth talked to me about the rules of the house (no touching expensive things, no shoes worn in any room, little brown food or drink allowed) she gazed at her reflection in every one of them, four multiplied elegant and severe women eyeing me curiously in a house that would never belong to me. I watched as she fluffed her strawberry blonde hair and knew she had wanted to adopt a child because she was too vain about the weight she'd gain while pregnant. It also meant she'd never have to dirty her beautifully manicured hands by changing a baby's diaper. I sighed and flopped down onto the bed, and she immediately removed my socks, claiming they were soiled by my old rotten orphanage shoes.

"We'll take you out shopping tomorrow, oh yes, we must go shopping for the party as well," she caught my surprised face in the largest ornate mirror and adjusted a pearl earring demurely. "Of course there's going to be a party! To welcome you to our home, it will be divine. You leave it all to me; we're going to try on every dress the best stores have to offer. And of course shoes, purses, and oh dear, perhaps lingerie as well? What are you, eleven? I think it's about time to pick out a training bra missy, you'll want those things to be super perky when you're my age, don't you?"

My face blushed with horror and I covered myself in the white sheets until I had heard her leave the room, bare feet whispering across the perfect pallid carpets. A training bra? I didn't know what the heck that meant. Was she going to enter my bony chest into the Olympics? In my suitcase there were only four pairs of underwear, two dresses and my white patent pocketbook filled with Slappy's treasures. Pierced by nostalgia I drew myself from the bed and opened up the suitcase, decorating the soap-colored dresser with Slappy's card, my wedding ring, and the diamond heart brooch. I thought Elizabeth would be envious of these things, so I withdrew the ring and brooch to keep hidden beneath the bed. I would take them out at night to sleep with, to give me dreams of Slappy. What would he think of me here, drowning in white roses and thickly painted white walls, trapped with people who were absorbed in their own ridiculously conceited images? I pictured him sitting on the embroidered pillow telling me funny things, we'd laugh and howl about their collection of mirrors and Slappy'd track wormy mud throughout the house.

I had my first real birthday party at the home of Sebastian and Elizabeth, but it was scattered in between the other hundred dazzling parties that were thrown in my honor. I was a twelve year old home schooled freak they tried to pass off as a princess, the heir to a luxurious fortune. I never knew the name of a single guest who spoke to me. Elizabeth passed off my mutism as shyness, and claimed I ran around the house singing when there was no one around, that I put on pretend plays and the most elegant stream of words flowed from my mouth that left anyone who was lucky enough to hear me astounded. I rolled my eyes and drank from the glasses of champagne that Sebastian kept thrusting into my hand, the pale golden bubbles twinkling in the evening made me smile stupidly; I began to think I was floating above the guests up to the throbbing ruddy moon until he grabbed my hand and we drifted off into a guest bedroom, where the sheets were the same color as my luscious drink.

"You like it here, don't you Carrie?" Sebastian asked as I sank into the silky bed. I hiccupped and nodded. "How long has it been? Two or three months, am I correct?" I shrugged and hiccupped again, giggling to myself. This room too was filled with white roses to the brim; the sweet fragrance coated my lungs. Sebastian kneaded his hands together and went to gather his camera from a dressing table. "I've never shared my work with you, have I?"

I had no interest in his photography, and since the champagne had bewitched me I was courageous enough to admit I thought he was boring. I showed him I lacked any concern whatsoever by pretending to aim my fingers at my disheveled head, imitating a loaded pistol. Sebastian found it amusing and laughed at me, but then his eyes flared wickedly, beginning at the center and flooding to his lashes with a demonic light. "I promise you, my work is anything but boring. Come, let me show you,"

Emboldened by the champagne I aimed my imaginary pistol at his chest as he approached me, but fear trickled into the sleepy thickness of my veins. I lowered my weapon. It was easy to overpower me, my heavy head heavy threadlike limbs. Sebastian pushed me into the bed and struggled with my stockings, pulling them off and tossing the gauzy ribbons to the floor. My dress followed in the same brutish manner. The night in the mouldering attic with Mr. Grammel swam back to me, I wanted to scream for help but Slappy wasn't there to rescue me. I shut my eyes and waited for an act of violence, but what I heard was the wheezing shutter of a camera come to life. My pounding heartbeat slowed to a slackened pace, when I opened my eyes I saw Sebastian hovering above me, his sock feet plunging into sheets on either side of my body as his camera went flash flash flash. He was taking pictures of me as I lay there in my underwear, the new training bra Elizabeth had picked for me decorated with pale pink lace. Blinded and rigid I stared into the glass eye of his greedy camera and wondered if they thought of me at the party. We were only a few rooms away from the patio, the window bare for everyone to see. Why weren't they coming to help?

"These are going to be beautiful, Carrie. Real artwork," Sebastian's voice came muffled from somewhere in the flurry of light above me. "You are a glamorous, stunning muse," click click flash flash. A layer of my skin peeled back from his disgusting shoot. "I've got to get back to the party, but I'll develop these in the morning,"

He abandoned me in a sea of rotting silk. I pulled the sheets around me and held my breath, my nude arms felt blistered by the flash of his camera; I still could not see the room clearly and blinked like a helpless newborn animal. I thought he photographed ordinary things. Nature and architecture. Not helpless girls splayed before him like pieces of meat. His camera machine had consumed me, drawing up a sordid image that would burn the back of my eyes when I was to see it the next day. But I was silent. I couldn't tell anyone that both Sebastian and Elizabeth loved to pursue the photographic art of capturing pretty young destitute girls like me, our pain glossed over in each sublime secretive print. Impoverished creatures who would learn to feed from the camera, to pose the way Sebastian wanted them too so that they'd have a meal on the table, a beautiful bed to sleep in. They showed me albums, girls with their bare flesh offered up and haunted frightened eyes. Elizabeth gleefully arranged a place for me in the photo book, sliding in a picture of me stripped, looking brain-damaged from the fear of Sebastian's encroaching camera.

Silently I learned to let the camera pick flowers from my skin. Sebastian arranged silk pillows around my nude body, posing me like a snared mermaid writhing from a hook. A timid mouse with attached glittering black ears sitting cross legged wearing only satin bloomers. A child prostitute sheathed heavily in makeup and pearls, black lace evening gloves hiding her bitten fingernails. A schoolgirl undressed, lazily skimming her schoolbooks with her exposed thigh curved seductively. I grew to like my photos, and stole copies from Sebastian's hazy dark room. The photos showed me I was still alive, they showed there was a strength brewing within me preparing to fight back. I was fond of the intensely growing anger cupped in my eyes at each demented shoot; the camera snapped it up and reflected it back to me marvelously. When Sebastian wanted to photograph himself naked with me, I ran. I bit into his looming cheek and made a river of blood splatter upon the perfectly white sheets. Taking the bag I'd hidden in his bedroom, which contained Slappy's treasures along with my photographs, as well as a gluttonous favor bag from the Oz's latest party, I tore away from the house, Elizabeth screaming after me in the hot summery darkness that I was a filthy whore who should never expect her generosity again. A shrill laugh escaped my throat, shattering the rust that had gathered there from disuse. It crackled through the shadow and made even my blood run cold, it sounded so like Slappy. I shouted I was coming for him, that I'd never stray from the path of searching for him again. The camera had peeled me layer by layer until there was only raw madness left.

* * *

><p>I was picked up by a police officer early in the morning, I had stared at his thoroughly polished badge the entire time he questioned me on being a prostitute. I never confessed, although he had found me wandering the city streets sluggishly in a wardrobe that consisted of a black lace bra, underwear and garter belt decorated in satin red roses. He smelt sex on me, but that was only because Sebastian had been masturbating over my tensed body, it was so easy to overpower him when he was crippled by desire. I thought of the blood running down his cheek and laughed, which the officer took as the impudence of a criminal. He cuffed me in silver bracelets that caught the early morning sunlight and then it was off to a home for delinquent wayward girls.<p>

I would have taken Sebastian's monster over any of the bitches I came across in the wayward girls' center. I didn't even think of them as girls, they all were my age but so jagged and dangerous, smoking cigarettes and blowing the putrid scent into my face, skinny tattooed arms, bloody hearts and one eyed skeletons welcoming me as I found the way to my pitiful doll-sized bed. They whistled when I bent over to hide my suitcase, I knew instantly I would have to hide Slappy's treasures, for they'd steal them away as I slept, I feared they'd even cut my throat to have the diamond ring or the brooch.

"So, we got ourselves a pretty little streetwalker! Honey, you gotta been working the rich side of town cause I ain't never seen you out at night around here, you must charge a hefty chunk of cash, huh? What do you let them do to you? Brush your hair and sing you love songs?"

The girls round me howled with laughter and reached out to pull my fragile blonde hair.

"She looks like she don't know the first thing about working a man, I don't believe it for a second she been picked up for streetwalking."

Anger was incited as I rose from the bed clutching the white purse to my chest. The girls grabbed at my hair and attempted to snatch the pocketbook away, and I fled from the room while they taunted me for being a virgin and a stuck-up cunt. Finding sanctuary in a scruffy darkened janitor's closet, I unhinged a ceiling tile and flung the purse into the shadows above me, tears sliding down my cheek as I realized I missed Slappy more than ever.

The girls were terrible, unrelenting in their hatred, but I only had to face their torture before school and during the evenings. I was enrolled in a local high school but never went back after my first day. My mathematics teacher took my copy of Lolita, secretively and steamily open upon my lap beneath the desk, and tore the pages up before me because I was not paying attention to her dreary complicated lesson. At lunch a bowl of potato salad was tossed at my back, drenching through an expensive dress I'd stolen from Elizabeth's closet and leaking down into my white knee socks. Even in the library I could not escape the torment of being a strange new girl, books on sex education were lashed at my head, I determined that the girls from the delinquent home had appetizingly spread the rumor of my false prostitution round the school.

I never went back, refusing to spend the time there crouched and weeping in a dirtied, foul-scented bathroom stall. I was free to roam the city during the school days, and instantly took to scouring antique and thrift shops, combing the dusty mysterious array of shelves for my dear Slappy. I remembered once he'd told me of how a few of his owners had come across his body, and it was through hunting the treasure caverns of antique stores. I spoke with the owners of every store, even drawing pictures for them in my desperate search. I raked through piles of dolls and toys like a mermaid exploring the glittering salvage of a shipwreck's ruin. I thought of all the places a dummy could turn up. A birthday house for children, a museum, theaters with red velvet curtains, street flea markets. I attempted to find my way back to Rose Hill Orphanage, which was in the next city, but whenever I asked someone walking past, they stared horror-struck and quickened their pace, frantic to be away from me.

All the time I was forced to spend at the wayward home I passed sitting before a grimy, cracked bathroom mirror stroking my hair delicately with a silver brush one of the antique store owners had given me out of pity. The girls would surround me, threatening to chop off my hair, whispers and hisses of _bitch, virgin slut, filthy cunt, stuck-up whore _threaded through my ears. My eyes pierced through saliva stains and ash against the glass, refusing to cry, thinking of Slappy telling me how beautiful my hair was. They took the silver brush and threw it to the tiled floor, where it clattered and broke in half, strands of my hair glowing between the thick bristles lifelessly.

I took their beatings each day without a whimper, without a cry for help. The attendants had to peel the rabid girls off of me in the morning at breakfast, while I made my bed, while I brushed my teeth; in the night while I took a shower, as I slept in bed. I wandered the streets to my usual antiquing haunts with garish, bruise-rimmed eyes and lips decorated with bright red slits, as though they were stitched shut. The owner of one store who had given me the silver hairbrush approached me the day I came in with a pathetic limp, for one of the girls had stomped ruthlessly on my ankle, another on my thigh. Tears glistening in his aged blue eyes. I had collapsed into a new delivery of children's toys and was tearing through them like a starved lioness when I felt his finger tap my bare scarred shoulder.

"Where do you live, honey? Who keeps doing this awful business to you?" he kept his voice calm and low, I stared up at him with my ghoulish eyes, wanting suddenly to cling to his legs, he was so fatherly and warm. His wife crept up behind us and my heart burned to clutch at her as well, could I live in their store, be their tiny ghastly vintage doll? I could clean for them, work at the register, anything they wanted, they didn't even have to pay me. I wanted to ask, but I feared what I had to offer was worthless.

"Would you like to come to the back, sweetheart? There's a pot of coffee brewing, if you drink the stuff. There's soda too if you don't," his wife took hold of his arm, I could sense she pitied me but was frightened of my morbid appearance as well. I stared at the floral pattern of her dress, little powder blue roses. Her hair was slightly tousled, long and chocolate brown.

"Sweetheart, we trust that the good Lord sent you to our store so we could help you with whatever is troubling you. We don't judge anyone in misfortune; you don't have to be afraid of letting us lend a hand of support to you," she bent down and touched gingerly at my harmed shoulder. Other shoppers were beginning to hang around and stare, so I slowly got up from the pile of discarded toys and followed her into the back of the store, while her husband looked after us hopefully and returned to the front.

"How old are you?" the woman, whose necklace read Miriam in miniature gold letters, asked me as I slumped into a chair and hungrily looked upon a bottle of Coke. My heart was pierced with terror; I had lost all track of time and could not remember my age. I recalled twelve years old with Sebastian leering over me, fourteen when I was plucked from the streets by the police officer. How long ago had that been? I asked Miriam what year it was and began to weep when she gazed at me remorsefully and answered. Only a few weeks ago I had turned sixteen. She gathered me up in her arms and stroked my matted hair, promising she would help me from whatever dilemma I had fallen into.

The girls at the wayward house spit into my hair as I left, dangling from my arm was the beautiful white pocketbook they had so longed to steal from me the first day I arrived. Slappy's treasures still safely locked inside, a simple casing of dust over the glossy veneer which I wiped away. As I lowered myself into Floyd's vintage blue Thunderbird Miriam waited for me in the backseat, complimenting the pocketbook and enwrapping me in her arms. Floyd slid into the driver's seat and smiled at us, starting up the engine and forever taking me away from the horrid girls who would remain in my nightmares along with Julia, Madame Louisa, Sebastian and Elizabeth. But I was so far from them now, folded up in a real fairytale garden. Miriam and Floyd both had so longed for a child, just like in the story of Rapunzel, and they'd stolen me away from the witch's tangled weeds, my long gold hair flying in the breeze that blew through the rolled down windows. I would never have to return.

"Hope you don't mind the country, Carrie. You were way too pretty to be stuck in that run down delinquent home, I'm afraid you might be too pretty for us simple country folk too," Floyd teased me from the front of the car, a song about summer thunder and dancing wheat fields echoing from the old fashioned radio. I laughed and hid my face in Miriam's chest. At sixteen I had become their princess baby, it was a dreamworld I never wanted to leave.

Miriam and Floyd lived out past the city, every morning they drove two hours into town to open their precious antique store for customers. I expected a farm with cows and beds of golden hay and lively chickens, but they lived on a sleepy street shaded with blooming magnolia trees in a small white clapboard two-story home, just like a dollhouse, not a chicken in sight.

We rose at five in the mornings and ate real homecooked country breakfasts with bacon and sausage and grits, and then I would drive with them to the antique store singing along to the country music I began to adore. I'd help them rummage through the donations or set up a section of the store for an outsider to sell their own belongings. I dusted each dining set and vintage television, cleaned up the record players and telephones, fainting couches and vanity tables. When I wasn't busy I'd try on the puffy tulle prom dresses, worn by long forgotten romantic girls. I'd lace my fingers in the ruby and emerald rings and keep a close eye on each toy that passed through the sorting room, Slappy always close to my heart. I had not told Miriam and Floyd about Slappy yet. I knew they would never say a bad thing about me, but I wanted Slappy's memory all to myself. Even though I had found no trace of him, I refused to believe he'd been burned up at the orphanage. I knew I truly loved him, my love had lived on for years and there was no fading, no forgetting. I held tea parties with the stuffed animals and dolls and asked them of Slappy's whereabouts. Children loved to visit the store because they had heard of me; my attention to things that delighted them was admired by Miriam and Floyd. I would read to them from yellowed storybooks or set up vintage racing car sets, parents even began paying me for watching their children while they would sneak around the street corner for a quiet lunch.

The white pocketbook began to overflow with pretty green money. I only purchased gifts for Miriam and Floyd, a cheap brown yard dress for myself, and toiletries whenever they were needed. I wanted to save the money so I could buy a car, a vintage one like Floyd's. My dream was to maneuver the city on wheels to save time, looking for Slappy and Dr. Richard, although I knew nothing of driving and was quite fearful of steering a car. I was ignorant of the hospital in which Dr. Richard worked, there were so many in the city, and Miriam and Floyd had never heard his name mentioned before. I didn't know why I wanted to look for him. While I stayed with Sebastian and Elizabeth I accepted that Dr. Richard had forgotten me, he had broken his promise of keeping me safe. But along with Slappy and the others, he entered my dreams every night.

It was a particular morning that I dreamed of Dr. Richard and Vanessa, of me as their daughter, and Slappy too. We were all together in a garden, I was picking flowers as they watched, and Vanessa disappeared into a magnificent yellow house to fetch a pitcher of lemonade. In the dream Dr. Richard and Slappy both crept their arms about my waist and my body seeped with love. I stood among the flowers wrapped in their embrace, warmed by the sun. I didn't want to wake up from the beautiful fantasy, so when Miriam came to gently rouse me I complained of a sore throat. She petted my head and cooed I wouldn't have to worry about joining her at the store. Murmuring for me to rest, she opened the window and let the warm morning breeze drift in to sing me back to sleep. Slappy waited with his bright emerald eyes, waited to pull me into his world. I followed him there willingly. Faintly I heard the soothing country music from the driveway, floating up from the Thunderbird, Floyd and Miriam pulling away from the house for another day at the store. I never even had the chance to say goodbye, to apologize for not being there when I should have been.

I awakened lazily and guiltily late in the afternoon, pinning the heart brooch to my earth-brown dress and slipping on the wedding ring, dreams of Slappy still filled my whimsical head. My blonde hair swayed messily against my back as I descended the staircase and emerged into the kitchen, searching for lunch. All of the windows were open and the tender summer heat filled the house, it felt so good to have it all to myself. Miriam and Floyd didn't have a television, so I figured I'd spend the day strewn upon the couch reading or working in Miriam's small flower garden just below the living room window. Stretching, I plunged my hand into the freezer for ice cream and was hunting for a bowl when I noticed the answering machine blinking its beady red eye. I laughed to myself; Floyd had the phone installed just for me, thinking I'd have flocks of boys calling to take me out; so far only a woman from Avon had telephoned in her attempt to sell a makeup kit.

Feeling bad for lying to Miriam about my sore throat when I only wanted to greedily stay in bed and dream, I mashed down the button and waited to hear her protective voice checking in on me, asking if I wanted her to bring home any medicines or soup. The voice of a police officer cracked over the white noise of a bad outdated phone. I thought I must still be dreaming, a nightmare perpetuated by the guilt of lying to Miriam, but my hand began to freeze from the carton of ice cream I gripped within my fingers. I screamed and dropped it. A robbery. Miriam and Floyd gunned down. Police were on the way to pick me up and make arrangements. No. It wouldn't happen again. I wasn't going back to any god damn orphanage, any god damn special home. I cried for Slappy but he wasn't there. I cried for Dr. Richard, he had never been there. I thought of everyone I had ever loved, somehow poisoned by my entrance into their lives. Everyone I cared for either gone far away or dead. Burned up corpses, corpses with bullet holes still smoking their flesh as I stood in the hazy kitchen.

I felt the house pressing in around me, the walls turned watery and demented, shadows circling my wrists and ankles, the floor was a swamp that wanted to suck me down into its awful boggy muck. I grew ice cold even in the summer heat and found myself in the bathroom where Floyd kept a bottle of sleeping pills. They were pale blue in my hand, beads of frost that would sing me into a forever sleep. I ran to my room next, crawled under the bed to retrieve the party favor bag from the Oz house. Inside was a small pink bottle of champagne. Miriam and Floyd didn't keep alcohol in the house, and I knew it was needed in order for my disappearing act to work. My legs were sticky and drenched from the bog and I slapped at them, only to find dry white skin. I slipped the diamond drops of pills into my mouth and washed them down with champagne. I shuddered from the bitter taste and collapsed into bed weeping. Covering myself with the floral quilt Miriam had sewn for me, I watched a freezing white light emanate from my skin. I heard the bog sucking around me and shut my eyes, I was frosted with kisses and heavy limbs, there was a dead weight in my head, it dripped down through my arms, my legs, my feet. I felt my veins dissolve into nothingness. Somehow the swamp had swollen to envelop me; I was drowning in thick steamy green water and prayed that Slappy was waiting on the other side.


	15. The Other Side

Chapter Fifteen ~ The Other Side

* * *

><p>My bones were dreary, laced with inertia, limbs so sore I couldn't move them. Where was I? I attempted to lift my aching arms but found they had been wrapped at the wrists, I was imprisoned in a hospital bed. Darkness sifted across my eyes, an IV machine hummed quietly in the shadow. I peered through the open door of the room to see a nurse's station, a woman in white typing away at a glowing computer. Weakly, I raised my eyes to the large face of the clock above, it was nearly four-thirty in the morning. I writhed impatiently upon the bed, wanting to be released from the horrible itching ribbons that pinned my arms to the mattress. My throat burned, dry and filled with sand, I could barely swallow yet alone speak. Or scream.<p>

I shut my eyes and the dim hospital room fell away. I remembered everything. Slappy. Dr. Richard. Rhonda. The wedding, the fire. Cleo, Kevin Harvey. My shocked body. Elizabeth and Sebastian, their sordid photographs and champagne home. The awful girls at the reformatory school. Swimming in antiques. My darling Miriam and Floyd. Swallowing the pills, falling into the imaginary bog. Slappy. Dr. Richard. Slappy, Slappy, _Slappy. _My eyelids trembled, I pressed them together tightly and began to sob, choking from the dryness in my throat. The nurse outside of the door looked up from her computer and noticed I had awakened. Through my teardrops I watched her hurry from her station, and when she was out of view I listened to her speaking hastily into a telephone.

"Where has Doctor Night gone? He needs to be found immediately, the girl has woken up!" was she talking about me? My heart began to pound and I heard the machines around me whir into life, beeping as they monitored the blood in my veins, frozen rubies turning to a warm sea of poppy petals. Returning to life was painful. They were going to send me away again, to another detention home, or worse, I'd be locked up in a mental institution for the rest of my life. I pressed my eyes tightly shut again and wept, my heart slowly perished for the last time, for all of time. Why hadn't I died? I had taken so many of the pills, washed them all down my throat, why hadn't they given me what I desired most? Where was Slappy, where was Dr. Richard, where was the fairy kingdom I dreamt of entering? Instead I had fallen deeper into the pits of hell. Doctor Night, was that who the nurse had called? He would be the darkness of nighttime coming to swallow me up, he'd pick me up like a doll and perch me in a wheelchair. I could hear the wheels creaking, I could smell the slick green paint and laminate floors already as he bore me away to my doom.

I heard the voice of footsteps outside of the room, and promised myself to not open my eyes. I would not look at this Doctor Night, enameled in his white cruel coat. I would chew my teeth into his arm if he tried to touch me, I wouldn't let them drag me away. I'd find something to cut my wrists with, to plunge into my heart. I felt the light pour into my room, it sizzled against my dead-pale skin and flickered against my eyelids. Machines were being checked, a chair was being pulled to the bedside. I swallowed, my throat longing to be doused in water, but I would not ask for it. I wanted nothing from the terrible doctor, nothing he could offer would save me.

"Carrie? Carrie, sweetheart…"

The dead petal at the center of my heart bloomed to rosy life. It was his voice, _his, _Richard's. I was taken back to my orphanage bed, Vanessa's cool hands stroking my pallid forehead, Richard speaking smoothly in the dark, after all the children had been poisoned. He was here, again, taking care of me. My eyes wanted to fly open, but was it a dream? Would I only see a tantalizing, wicked vision when I lifted my wet lashes? The tears were still falling, streaking my burning cheeks. I could not open my eyes, the fear of being tricked, of being desolated kept them tightly shut and limp.

"Carrie, open your eyes sweetheart,"

My eyes fluttered open, and it _was _Richard. He was the night, the sweet enveloping night unleashing my dreams. Doctor Richard Night, it was him, it was! Oh he'd never shared with me his last name, how could he withhold such a significant treasure? I cried out, my wilted voice cracking the dryness of my throat, and wanted to reach for him. The white cords entombed my loving arms to the bed, and Richard viewed them coldly.

"Cut these off, she doesn't need them. She's no longer a danger to herself," he smiled at me as the nurse hurried to remove the restraining bracelets, placing his warm palm atop my head and fingering the sweating hair there, not minding at all. "I've found you at last, sweet Carrie," he gingerly lifted me from the bed and wrapped my sore body with his. I found my arms so heavy and struggled to drape them across his back.

"My arms are like suitcases," I mumbled stupidly, like a child. It wasn't what I wanted to say to him at all. But he laughed softly into my hair, pressing me deeper into his chest.

"It's only the medication that makes your body feel heavy and drowsy, it'll wear off soon. Oh Carrie, you had taken so many pills, I was so scared I'd lose you," he buried his face at the base of my neck, I felt his hot sugary tears cascade there. "To think how lucky we both are, for you to be brought to my hospital," he sobbed brokenly, the nurse exited the room and left us to fuse together once more, to repair the long lost rusted locket of our shared heart. "Carrie, I'm so sorry I didn't find you sooner, I'm so sorry,"

I couldn't speak, I knew if I unlocked my mouth, terrible moans and gruesome sobs would flow out. I couldn't weep tenderly like a princess on his shoulder. I embedded my fingernails into his back and clung to him, never wanting to let go. He was so solid, I felt his love soak into me, making me real, filling up the dead hollowness that had followed me since the burning of the orphanage. Slowly, I floated out of my daze, and the languid sickness began to leak from my bones. The two of us sat together, dried of tears, descending gradually from our stupor. I was afraid to speak; terrified to fracture the dream world I had entered. I still could not distinguish fantasy from reality. After such a dazzling dream, how could I pull myself into the real world? Still I feared waking to find Richard had never been there at all, and so as he spoke to me I'd reach out to touch his wrist, the snow white material clothing his knee, the dark handsome side of his face.

"Carrie, I must tell you now why I never came to the orphanage sooner. Vanessa…" he shut his eyes, sorrow had flooded his heart and he winced in pain. "Vanessa had found she was pregnant, she called me while I was in London, and we were so excited. We wanted to tell you, but she became sick, she admitted herself to this very hospital. I tried to come home as soon as I could, but, Vanessa…she suffered a miscarriage, and became horribly ill…Carrie, Vanessa died, she has been dead for seven years," he lowered his dark lashes, which were fringed with tears, and his head sank into his shaking palms. I reached out a trembling hand to stroke his heaving back, following the current of his tears. Something inside of me was bitterly stirring, I mourned for Vanessa, but why hadn't he come for me after her death? I had waited so long, thinking he must have been in another country, when all along he had been locked inside of his house weeping over his dead wife.

"I thought of you Carrie, I thought of you and longed to tell you my sufferings…it took me so long to come back to life after losing Vanessa and our baby, to become merely the shell of the man I once was…and by the time I felt strong enough to go and fetch you, I found the orphanage had been burnt, and that all of the children had died, all except you, special one, but you went on slipping further and further from my reach. The woman, Madame Louisa, still lived there, in that crumbling charred manor, but she would not tell me where she had sent you. All of my attempts to find you were fruitless,"

My skin boiled and hissed at the sound of her name, the blood beneath turned to a river of hate. I gripped the sheets between my fingers, wanting to rip them into tattered ribbons. Madame Louisa, alive? I thought for sure she would not make it through that night, I remembered her laying dazed upon the stretcher, her withering voice sounding as though it radiated through a smoke-black world. How could she have lived? It was so cruel for her to remain in the world, when she had murdered the innocent lives of Rhonda, Harold and Peter. And Slappy. Slappy…I began to cry again, and Richard rocked me into his arms to soothe me.

"Vanessa would be so happy to know we found each other, Carrie darling," he whispered into my hair, and I fastened my lips shut. I wasn't thinking of Vanessa or her dead baby, I wasn't even thinking of the haunted pain that filled Richard's heart. I only wanted Slappy. Hearing Louisa's name filled me with phantoms of Slappy burning in the flames she created. I hated myself for being so greedy, for being irritated with Richard as he sobbed within my arms. Why had he taken so long to find me? It should have been so easy if the love he held in his heart for me was true. He should have sent costly detectives searching for me, he should have ordered the world to be shut down until I was safe in his arms. Was it because of the baby he had lost? Had he no longer wanted me when he discovered Vanessa's pregnancy? A darling child that would truly be all his? And then, when the poor dear had crinkled with death, did he remember me, and once again desire a child? Did he feel guilt or shame at all? I looked at him as he straightened his white coat, searching the depths of those speckled, woeful eyes. "I lost everyone I ever loved, or so I thought," he murmured, and placed his hand atop mine.

Weren't we the same? I too thought I had lost everyone I held dear, but now one angel had returned to me.

"Carrie, I want you to come home with me, I want to take care of you. The other doctors would like you to stay awhile, they think it would be best to move you to the psychiatric ward, but I will tell them it isn't necessary," he smiled as he dabbled at his tears with the edge of his pristine sleeve.

Dread wrapped round my heart like ivy upon hearing my escape from the psychiatric ward. Something I didn't want to remember, how I was treated in the children's home, the lighting that cracked my bones and very near took Slappy's memory from me. Richard began to explain calmly that he had been informed on what had happened there. My electroshock treatments had been performed improperly, and he elaborated upon the other doctor's worries that later in life I would develop a personality disorder. I floated out of myself while listening, not wanting to believe I would ever fall apart at the seams again. I was a dazed girl; I recovered in the intensive care unit for two days, waited on like a princess by Richard. It wasn't his place in the hospital at all, Richard was a neurosurgeon, but he refused to part from my side, doing all he could to make up for our lost time.

* * *

><p>I arrived at his home on the pedestal of my shaking legs, the summery heat of the outside world felt so strange and new to me, I had been fumbling through cold darkness and waves of sickness and delirium at the hospital, and now found myself surfacing before a fairy palace, that promised no phantom would ever hurt me again. Richard's house was immaculate: four stories and painted the yellow color of lemon frosting, with windows of crystal glass as large and elaborate as castle doors, pink, red and white roses blooming along the front and sides of the house, tenderly kissing the yellow paint that reminded them of the sun. The Kentucky bluegrass so pure and cleanly cut I wanted to lay in it, to wrap myself in the sweet green blades.<p>

"I take it you are quite impressed," Richard spoke proudly as I stood there, gazing dreamily up at the beautifully crafted Victorian house. He laughed and joined me in admiring his home. "Darling, wait until you see the backyard. There's a secret garden awaiting you!"

My heart shone with excitement to see his garden, but I became aware of a little figure crouching by a tree in the yard next to Richard's. Through the shade of the tree I could see a flame of colors: a long trail of red and lime green, swaying in the summer breeze and watching me curiously.

"Oh, Hannah! I thought you'd be waiting to see who I brought home today!" Richard spoke to the demure hiding figure, I squinted my eyes to see who exactly it was he addressed. "Please, don't be shy, come over and meet her!" I peered beneath his raised arm.

In the deep shade of the willow tree her hair appeared dark ruby red, and my heart grew tight, she looked so like Cleo with her sawed-off whimsical scarlet hair, but as the little girl came into the summer sun that haunting image faded, for she was a pretty child, but looked nothing like my Cleo. Hannah's hair was a bright ginger rose red and her small pale face shined with freckles where Cleo's cheeks had been pasty and white. I smiled shyly and waited for Richard to introduce us.

"Hannah, I would like you to meet Carrie. She will be living with me from now on and I'm sure you two will be the best of friends,"

That cherry red hair drifted round her head playfully and she wrinkled her nose, trying to determine how I belonged to Richard. "Is she your daughter, or is she your wife?"

Richard blushed deeply, a trace of panic etched his cool voice. "No, Hannah, she is not my wife, she is much too young! She is my ward. I meant to adopt her long ago, but cruelly lost her, and after all this time, she's returned to me,"

I felt the summer wind dance across my skin, which was dressed in embarrassment. His _ward?_ What on earth did that mean? I wasn't good enough to be introduced as his daughter? I was a poor little orphan he'd rescued, and now he was meant to protect me. And then, his snide remark about my age, how he had said I was much too young. I felt I had lived a thousand years, but then too remembered all of the sorrows that had left his heart punctured and bruised. The little girl was smiling at me, asking me if I would come to play with her later in the day. I wanted to drop to my knees and hug her; I saw the light of childhood in her eyes, how happily she told me her lime green pants were her favorite. But I only nodded like a grim adult who was obligated to entertain a child, when inside I was perishing, wanting so much to relish in the innocence of childhood.

I was tormented between remaining a child and growing into a woman. Richard still thought of me as a child, and there was no mistaking that as he showed me to the bedroom he and Vanessa had decorated for me long ago, when their hearts fluttered with anticipation to welcome me into their home. My room belonged to a five year old Russian duchess. All of the furniture was princess white, heavy and elaborately sculpted with tiny flowered designs. There was a collection of ballerina snow globes, filled with rosy water and petals of glitter, musically twinkling swan melodies. An enormous custom-built Victorian doll house with lilac and pale-pink gingerbread sat beneath the ruffled, satin curtained window, the closet stuffed with frilly pastel dresses, each sleeve and collar adorned with thickets of lace and ribbon and velvet. I felt I could hardly breathe in the room, suffocated by the shelves of dolls, jewelry boxes and books. Never had I been gifted with so many possessions in my life. But there, sitting upon the floral satin coverlet of the bed, was the only light of my life, the treasure that had meant the most to me throughout the tides of darkness, looking very much but charmingly out of place amidst the pink roses and twirling ballerinas, was Slappy.

"Oh!" the little cry escaped my throat, and I rushed to the canopied bed, picking him up feverishly and enwrapping him with arms of white flame.

"I knew you'd be happy to see him again," Richard boasted as he lingered in the doorway. He said it so _simply_, as if I'd only been looking for the match to a lost stocking. "When I went to the orphanage, Louisa, that horrid woman, paid no attention to me after she thought I'd left. I crept back in, looking for any clue of you, and to see what damage the fire had done. Well, imagine who I found sitting there in all that ruin! He was pretty beat up, covered in ash and his face practically melted, but I took him to be fixed up, they spruced him up real good, this little toy shop I found, and he's been waiting for you here ever since,"

I couldn't believe it; Slappy had been here all along, waiting for me, imprisoned in this childish bedroom. I stared into his marbled green eyes, searching for the little girl I once was, the little girl who sparkled in his vision. He felt so lifeless in my arms, it haunted me, I wished Richard would leave us to be alone, but he waited in the doorway, not wanting a dummy to be chosen over him. Slappy's inert body, his deep eyes, I wanted to shake him until he came to life, to lay in bed until the end of time in his embrace. Tenderly I wiped a caking of dust that decorated the top of his silent head.

"Carrie, darling, are you coming to see the garden?" Richard asked impatiently, I nodded and wrapped Slappy in my arms. "Oh, nothing about you has changed," he smiled, but I saw a gleam of annoyance in his eye.

He led me down into the garden, all the while I kept Slappy pressed to my heart. The beauty of the flowers couldn't capture my attention. The singing of the fountains couldn't make me forget. Slappy was here, my light hadn't been taken. I had emerged from my prison of loneliness and suffering to the other side, to the light, the enveloping nourishing light of a genuine life, a life filled with love. Each scar suddenly held the glow of a rose, I thought of how much I had to tell him.

* * *

><p>*How dare you think for a minute that I'd let Carrie and Slappy die! Their story, their romance, their revenge is far, far from ending! I am so sorry to have been suffering from the weariest bout of awful writer's block but there is so much more to this story, it won't be over yet! And Slappy never dies, don't you remember? xx<p> 


	16. Doll House

Chapter Sixteen ~ Doll House

* * *

><p>I dreamt my arms were manacled to the bed. I was still there, in the deep hospital, suffocating as arrangements were made for me to be locked away in an institution forever. Writhing in terror, I felt my arms scraping not against the rough material of hospital sheets, but of cool, fine silk. My heart slowly retained its whispering beat and I opened my eyes to see it had been a nightmare, I was no longer in the hospital, but in my own bedroom, the rosy pink walls looked waxy in the dark, the white lace of the canopy dripping round me. My own bedroom, it felt so strange to think I belonged now in Richard's house. But curled beneath my shoulder, a pair of crocodile-green eyes glowed in the shadow, staring at me quite too passionately for a puppet carved from wood.<p>

"Oh, Slappy!" I wrapped his precious body in my arms, heat strangely came from his chest and radiated against mine. "You're really here…we are safe…" murmuring softly, I drew back to gaze fondly at him, his painted lips shining in the dark, eyes stiff and glassy as before. Richard said it had all been a hallucination, my time with Slappy in the orphanage, born from my sorrow there. He had never come to life, he had never spoken, he had never taken a step on his own. I had imagined everything, made up a silly game in my head. Could it be true? I touched a finger to his cold lips, swearing I viewed a flicker of life in those piercing eyes. "Slappy, please, will you tell me? Was I sick, was I only dreaming you were there?"

He did not answer. I felt my long hair snag, trickling against my back down the mattress and tangled within the blankets. Another strange feeling, but wonderful, there was no one to cut my princess length hair. I struggled to wring it free from the covers so I could sit up with Slappy in my lap. I remembered everything, and I knew that it was not my imagination, no matter what fancies Richard tried to feed me. I held Slappy close and thought of my time in the orphanage, the memories cold at first, and then made soft as I curled in bed protected by my new home, eyes glittering from the dust of my childhood. Slappy sitting at a school desk beside me, a veneered hand moving on its very own as he copied down notes from Madame Louisa's lecture. Slappy and I wandering through the icy blackness of the morgue pressed tightly together, searching for the vial of embalming fluid he had so darkly desired. Slappy and I hidden away in the mouldering attic, listening to the blue rain dripping against the rotten wood of the roof, before Mr. Grammel had crept in and discovered us. If Slappy had not saved my life, then who had? Who was the one to push Mr. Grammel onto that rusting nail? Who was the one to stuff Julia into the washing machine? Disgusted with myself, I snickered at the image of her suddenly drawn into my mind, her pitiful little shoes and stockings hanging upside down, spinning round and round as her head filled with water and was finally crushed. Or did Slappy clamp down the lid, with her entire body smashed and crumpled like a sack of broken flower petals? As my mouth brightened with laughter, I swore another soft laugh came from somewhere in the room, the cackling note rising up from my elbow. I looked down to Slappy, but only the cutting green eyes stared back, blank and smooth as mirror glass.

"Oh Carrie, must you really have Slappy eat breakfast with you?"

Richard sighed distastefully over his almond coffee in the morning as I slipped into the immaculate white kitchen, Slappy encircled in my chilly arms. I poured a cup for myself and sat across from Richard at the high counter, smiling as I rested Slappy in my lap. I couldn't help looking round at all of the spotless pans and utensils hanging from the beamed ceiling, the silver stove and marble sink. I felt someone would come out from the pantry and shoo me away with a broom, the kitchen was too fragile and beautiful for me to dare dine within.

"Carrie, my darling. You do remember our little talk? Back then, you were a little girl with a big imagination. So wonderful were you at playing pretend, I can understand that there were many times when Slappy did truly seem alive to you. But he is only a dummy! And you are no longer a little girl; you must start to behave like a grown woman. Aren't you twenty now? My god, how the years fly by," his long teeth glittered as he smiled and raised the coffee mug to his lips.

I glared at him across the shining counter, hating when he spoke to me in his doctor manner, he became so sickeningly conceited I tasted my coffee with bitterness.

"And that reminds me. Since I have missed so many of your birthdays, I decided to get you something…"

And I hated how he could flood my heart with guilt, for ever thinking that he was a nasty arrogant doctor who held not a tender affection for me. Dangling from his spicy almond-scented fingers was a golden locket, engraved delicately in the shape of a valentine heart. I couldn't believe it, real gold! It felt so heavy as he placed it into my hand, the weight of his own heart. Childishly I scraped at the latch with my fingernail to open it, and found a photograph of Richard in the right golden frame, and inside of the left, a photograph of Vanessa. I looked up at him, gracious but wounded he had not chosen a photograph of me. Foolishly I swallowed my pride, for I remembered there _were _no photographs of me, only the sordid ones Sebastian had taken, and those Richard's eyes would _never _skim across.

"Here, let me put it on for you," he came round the counter, already dressed for work. I held the locket on its frail necklace and he took it gently, pulling back the pale thicket of my hair as he wound the locket round my neck. It clasped and I felt his hands linger at the point of my spine, breathing against my skin as he placed his fingers on my shoulders. They were trembling slightly. "You look so beautiful, Carrie,"

"Thank you," I whispered. I realized I didn't want to thank him for telling me I was beautiful. It was something I would never be, and to hear it dance from his lips harmed me, it bit into my flesh like some taunting beast. I had wanted to thank him for his gift only. I would never deserve to be called a beauty, and certainly not by someone as righteous as Richard. "Thank you, for the necklace," I mumbled, my uncombed hair falling across my scarlet cheekbone as I looked down and opened the locket again.

"You're welcome," his trembling fingers drifted from my shoulders and searched for his briefcase. "I'm to be off to the hospital now, I should have been in hours ago, but wanted to wait for you to join me at breakfast,"

"Oh, I didn't know, I'm sorry!" the necklace burned at my flesh, I was unworthy of it and would only destroy Richard's life. What was I thinking, agreeing to live with him? I belonged in chains at the depths of the sea, in waters deep with salt which would lap at my bleeding open wounds.

"Carrie dear, it's perfectly fine!" he kissed my forehead, leaving an imprint of almondy breath. "What will you do today, while I am out?"

"Oh," my hands fell away from fidgeting with the necklace, and I wrapped them round Slappy. "I don't know. I'll ask Hannah over again, it was fun spending time with her yesterday,"

"She certainly adores you already. Who wouldn't, sweet Carrie? I'll see you tonight my dearest!"

Hannah and I had lazed about in the garden until late afternoon the day before. She had found Slappy surprisingly fetching, and I sat among the dreamy lilacs watching her play with him, waiting for a tinge of life to seep into Slappy's body. He never reached to grab her, never made her scream. But I didn't want him to. I hoped Hannah would become my friend. She was so rosy with life, so madly silly and blithe, captured in her pure childhood. I envied her, but was beginning to adore her as well.

* * *

><p>"Miss Carrie, I'm very thirsty, would you please make me a milkshake?"<p>

Hannah was carefully moving her lips as she made Slappy speak to me, she had given him a squeaky, babyish voice I knew he would have hated, but I laughed anyway. She'd been playing with him all morning as we lay in Richard's enormous front yard, beneath the shade of a chestnut tree. The sun found us even beneath the heavy sea of green branches, growing warmer as noon approached. Breezes across our laps as we sank in the sultry grass, I shut my eyes and basked in the beautiful light.

"It's getting so hot," Hannah sighed, in her own languid voice, and stretched beside me in our nest of summery grass. "I'm hot too!" she made Slappy complain, and stretched him across her stomach.

"You're good at not moving your lips," I said, even though I hadn't looked at her as she lavished in Slappy's voice. "I never tried that with Slappy when I was little, I never put on a show with him or anything,"

"Oh! Do you think I could put on a show? I've always thought being a ventriloquist would be so cool!" Hannah roused about and peered through the thick sheet of sunshine boiling upon the grass. "We could use Mr. Night's backyard, in the garden! We can have refreshments and everything, and I'll practice real hard with Slappy, it will be neat-o!"

"I, I don't know if that's a good idea…" I dragged myself from the shade, sitting up to squint at Hannah in the sunlight.

"Why not?" my heart dropped at the look of betrayal that took the light from her bluebell-colored eyes. "Mrs. Night always let me visit the garden, it was hers, you know,"

I groaned lightly in annoyance. Richard's house was decorated with photographs of Vanessa, and now to hear the garden had belonged to her made even my bones sick with jealousy. Was the entire property a shrine to her? "Well, now it is my garden, and I say we can have a grand puppet show, if that's what you want!"

"Yay! Let's go inside and start practicing!" Hannah wrapped her arms around me, smashing Slappy between us, and then scampered off towards the house. I followed her, seeing how the sun dazzled Slappy's green eyes as he rested in her arms. When Hannah moved to open the door, the light reflected from Slappy's eyes blinded me. I looked again and they had both disappeared, a pool of black remained in the frame of the door.

"Hannah? Slappy?!" I cried, rushing into the house and nearly knocking over a silver-framed photograph of Vanessa in her wedding dress. My heart pounded when I did not find her in the kitchen.

"We are playing in your room!" she sang down to me, so sweetly the panic rising in my chest was subdued. "Oh, look at your doll house! It's so pretty!" I followed the sound of her voice up the carpeted stairs and into the pink and white museum that was now known as my bedroom. Slappy had been laid down against the pillows on the bed; Hannah had lost interest upon seeing the Victorian doll house.

"Richard told me that everything in the doll house is custom made. The tiny curtains, the lace blankets on the little brass beds, even the miniature cakes in the kitchen," it was a charming doll house, but Richard had gone on and on about having it made for me, back when he and Vanessa thought they'd be adopting me from the orphanage. I began to wonder what my childhood would have meant if they _had_ rescued me, and had suffocated me in these expensive trinkets.

"Look! Look! There's a ball room, and a piano, and a library!" Hannah squealed as she plopped down to the floor and began to play with a doll dressed in a pale pink chiffon dress. She found the husband next, a blue velvet tuxedo plastered to his wooden body. "My sweetheart, pudding pie, would you have this dance?" "Oh, _certainly_!"

Hannah _was _good at transforming her voice, deep and rich for the little husband, breathless and starlet-like for the little wife. I smiled and watched her play; she made the dolls waltz round the golden, dusty ballroom and then floated their figures into the library, where she poured them drinks from the tiny bottle of spirits.

"Hannah, if you like the doll house very much, why don't you take it home with you?" I spoke from the bed, and she turned to look at me, wide and starry eyed. "I'm sure Richard won't mind at all, I'm never going to play with it, I'm too old for toys,"

Her smiled faded to a frown then, her gaze fell to Slappy. "But Slappy is a toy,"

"No, no he isn't…Slappy is…alive," the breath drained from my chest, and I knew I shouldn't have said it. Hannah would be dashing down the stairs any minute, forgetting the doll house, forgetting me…

"Well, you're right. Of course he's alive! All dolls are alive, only we can't see them when they are. They go back to their places before we can catch them moving around! It really isn't fair, I wish they would let us see them!"

I could kiss her rose cheeks for her innocence! "Yes, he is alive, isn't he? But Slappy…isn't like other dolls…he isn't a doll at all," I pulled Slappy into my arms, feeling heat and weight and life. Hannah resumed her girlish attention to the doll house, fingering the lilac gingerbread admiringly, and I searched Slappy's eyes again, but they were inert and glassy, they did not glimmer with the mischief I remembered.

* * *

><p>Richard wanted to tell me everything that had happened at the hospital that night over dinner, and then wanted to hear everything that had happened as I waited for him to return home. He looked exhausted, and my heart ached for him, he was trying to appear so exuberant as he sipped wine and boasted of his colleagues' admiration. I knew it must be terribly horrid to work at a hospital, he spoke of opening brains over our roasted chicken like it didn't bother him at all. How did he know which nodule to pick, which nerve to heal? I kept silent all the while he spoke, keeping my eyes on him in fascination which I knew he'd enjoy.<p>

"So, Carrie love, how was your day?"

"Oh," I brought my napkin to my lips to wipe away a drop of sparkling water that had sloshed from my glass. (Richard absolutely disapproved of my drinking alcohol before I reached the age of twenty-one.) "Well, Hannah came over soon after you left. We played with Slappy all morning," I grinned over at Slappy, who was sitting in the high-backed pale grey chair beside me. I noticed Richard's lips quiver slightly with distaste. "She wants to put on a puppet show, later in the summer, I think it would be a nice way for you to introduce me to your neighbors,"

"Introduce you to society with a puppet show? That's absurd! They'd laugh at my back for years…" he cleared his throat as he caught the darkness in my eyes. "I'll think about it. What else were you two up to?" he coldly refused to ask what the _three_ of us had been up to.

"Well, we came inside and Hannah wanted to see my room. She fell in love with that doll house, I knew she'd give it a better home, so I helped her move it to—"

"You let her _have _it?!" Richard's hand slammed down onto the cherry-wood table, knocking Slappy over in his chair. "Carrie, didn't I tell you how expensive it was? Didn't I tell you Vanessa and I had that furniture made with only your interests in mind?"

I shrank back from him, reaching for Slappy's glossy hand beneath the table. Richard was absolutely livid, the crystal of his eyes shattering, his beautiful composure I had always known ripped to beastly shreds of a warped man. Before, I had been used to being screamed at, but Richard's anger towards me was worse than anything, I'd rather have Sebastian looming above me, Madame Louisa slapping me so hard I toppled over the staircase and twisted my neck like a doll. I feared he would hit me, it had been so stupid of me to give away something he treasured, and I deserved to be beaten for carelessly ignoring his words. I gripped Slappy's hand, preparing myself for Richard's brutality, but it did not come.

I heard Richard's heavy, rapid breathing; the pressure of Slappy's hand in mine had turned to a phantom weight, it was no longer there. A sharp-tuned crashing of a dining plate unwrapped my eyes. On the magnificent burgundy rug, Richard lay sprawled and unconscious, a porcelain plate in shards beside his head, speckled with deep drops of blood.

"Richard!" I sank to my knees, cradling his head in my lap and pressing the silk napkin to the cut across his forehead. He stirred drowsily, and beneath my fingers the pulse at his sweating neck was steady; I knew he would be all right. But, but _how _had it happened? Why would he hit himself with a plate? Was the doll house so important he couldn't stand living knowing I had given it away? That was foolish. It had to be…

I lifted my gaze to Slappy, who sat upright in his chair, a glitter of pride in the malicious circles of his eyes. A new smirk to the shiny wood lips. Had he done it? He was the only other person in the room, but it wasn't possible, Richard had said so. I felt so like a puzzled child, slipping back into my past and into the loneliness of the orphanage, pondering feverishly if Slappy had really winked at me. Was it happening again, like Richard had explained, was I only hallucinating? Or had Slappy returned, had he been alive all this time?


	17. Together Again

Chapter Seventeen ~ Together Again

* * *

><p>I sat with Richard in his gloomy bedroom as he recovered, the darkness tinted by photographs of Vanessa, her white face shining bright as crystal. I wondered if he dreamt of her each night, if he pierced the glossy paper capturing her face with his ardent eyes, and begged for her to come to him in slumber. He moaned lightly in his hazy sleep, I adjusted the cloth pressed to his forehead, drops of chilly water trickling past his nose. Giggling, I caught them with my finger, just before they wet his lips, where ragged breaths escaped. I had never felt so protective of him, my heart brimmed with tenderness at the flutterings of his eyelids, and each time the soft, weary sighs were drawn from his mouth. Slappy had hurt him, I knew it, and it had been all my fault. I shouldn't have cowered in fear; Richard would not have struck me, he'd only swooped down upon me, meaning to grab for my wrists. Slappy had seen everything wrong. I thought of my dummy still sitting in the dining room, his lips slick with pride, moonlight glinting on the veneer of his skin. He waited in silence, but I would not go downstairs to fetch him. I wanted nothing to do with him, in that moment. I only wanted Richard.<p>

Quiet as death I slipped beneath the blankets, curling myself against the slenderness of Richard's chest. I lay my hands across his heart, shutting my eyes as I listened to the river underneath his skin. I wanted to stay with him until we fell to dust. My limbs shook fearfully as I clung to him, feeling weak at the ribs. Scorn in my eyes as I peered up at Vanessa's photographs, she watched me ferociously. Each breath Richard took burned inside of me, I feared I would choke upon the ashes settling in my heart. I was wicked, _wicked! _I wanted us to be alone, alone forever. I pressed myself against him, propping my chin into the cavern of his chest, adoring how palely his cheekbones shone in the dark, the thick black forest of his hair collected neatly against the pillow.

"I thought I would find you here, caring for him. What a pitiful sight this is, when he never cared for you,"

The fire burning me to dust turned to ice at the voice that floated from the doorway, my bones frozen, holding stillness and dread. That voice, crackling, raspy, tangled with childhood nightmares, tinged with adoration. Slappy was speaking to me, after so many years. I turned to see him there, my trembling hands still grasping Richard as he slept. I couldn't bear to wake him, to pull him into this sickness.

"Carrie," his voice was desperate, for a moment I wilted. _Slappy. _I wanted to whisper, but held my tongue bitterly. _I've missed you so much Slappy, but I have forgotten the pinnacle of your evil, your disdain for anyone but yourself. _

"You might have killed him," I replied, hating myself for speaking so acidly to my childhood love. But Richard tossed at my side, and I clung to him, swearing Slappy would never harm him again.

"I'm sorry I didn't. Bleh! He's kept me locked up in that puke-inducing room so many years! All that pink really does awful things to the eyes, and don't get me started on the dust. I'm probably full of bugs, so we might have to wait awhile, honey," he chuckled, his laughter so vain and callous, but he seemed florid with happiness to be talking again, to finally make use of his wooden vocal cords, laying stiff for so long.

"Wait for what?" I glared at him, never quite understanding his curious behavior.

"We never had our wedding night! We must consummate our marriage,"

My eyes grew wide with terror, and I buried myself into Richard's arms, smothering my face into the cool linen of the blankets. _It's only a dream, it's only a dream. My childhood dummy did not just invite me to go to bed with him. Carrie, you aren't crazy, you're just scaring yourself. Bad memories. Bad dreams. Dream. It's only a dream._

"Carrie!" Slappy growled impatiently, desire and longing brimming just beneath the anger of his voice. I listened as his shoes clacked across the floorboards; he came closer to the bed, the moon encasing his bobbing shadow to the wall. "I know you remember!"

I shut my eyes and screamed. "Please Slappy, no!"

"Carrie?" Richard flew awake at my side, wrapping me in his arms. I felt the cloth I'd been pressing to his forehead fall softly into my lap. "Carrie? What's wrong? Have you had a nightmare?"

"I'm sorry," I murmured, lifting my cold arms and imprisoning his body with them. I peeked back at Slappy, who had fallen limp and crumpled to the floor. "I'm sorry, you're hurt, and it's my fault,"

"No, sshh," he soothed, kissing the top of my head. "I'm fine, darling. I shouldn't have yelled at you," I knew his glance darted nervously to Slappy, who lay seething in silence. "I must have hit the table with my fist too strongly, the plate fell and cut me, none of this is your fault,"

"It is," I whispered in woeful guilt, and Richard drew me back, smiling and straightening the tangles of my hair.

"It isn't Carrie, not at all. Please, forgive me for losing my temper," he begged, the turquoise smoke of his eyes making me wither. They were sea-gray eyes, with the flecks of palest turquoise. And they gazed upon me, considering me only a silly child. I wanted to cry, I could feel my lips quivering, just like an innocent.

"You are forgiven," I sighed, growing cold when he took his hands from my skin. I looked again at Slappy collapsed on the floor. "Richard, please, forgive me as well, for giving away the doll house. I'll do anything, I'll get a job to make the money to pay you back," I grabbed for his hands once more, turning my face away from Slappy in shame.

"Carrie, it isn't about the money," he took me into his arms again, and the nightmares diminished. "When you expressed your loathing of the doll house, it was like ice in my heart. I had wanted so long for you to enjoy it. I wanted it to be, like a dream house, something that everyone would envy and only you would have," his voice dripped through my hair, dazzling my mind. Disappointing him was like being skinned, but I didn't want that damn doll house, I didn't want anything in that bedroom, it belonged to a child, and I did not want to be _his _child.

I traced the sharpness of his face with my fingertips, raising my lips to his dreamily, but became exactly what I detested, a tired child who yawned into the mouth of the man she burned to kiss. He hadn't even taken notice I had wanted to devour him.

"You're sleepy, darling. We've had ourselves quite a night, haven't we?" this time I saw his sea-like eyes flit over Slappy's body. "Why don't you take your dummy and head off for bed. It's nearly midnight," Richard kissed my forehead, then touched his fingers to his own forehead, feeling the dried blood that had sewn a torn petal of a scar, not in need of stitches. "Thank you, my dear, for taking care of me,"

I swiped Slappy from the floor, grudgingly pulling myself into the dimness of the hallway as Richard's 'Goodnight' lingered like jewels on my skin. I had wanted Slappy so deeply to become real, for all my childhood wantings and wishes to have been more than imagined memories. And now he was real, more real than he had ever been, because he was intoxicated by jealousy.

"We sure have much to talk about, don't we?" Slappy snickered as I flopped his body onto the pink frills of my bed and locked the door.

"Slappy…" I pressed myself against the pink-painted wood, taking in the sight of him as he rose on his own, sitting upright to stare back at me. It was so strange, I felt delirious and numb underneath his gaze, slipping back into a dark childhood. The room began to spin, so I reached for a ruffled chair and collapsed into it, digging my fingernails into my bare knees until the image of Slappy was still, and the walls did not surge around me. "Why did you hurt him?"

"Is that all you want to ask me? After all this time? Why I hit the precious doctor?" Slappy hissed, and I wished he would be quiet; I didn't want Richard hearing the unnatural voice, for him to think I was talking to myself and going mad. "You aren't my Carrie,"

I swore Slappy's green eyes lost their shine, and it tightened my heart. How wretched I was being! Slappy was here, he was really here, and I was speaking to him as if he were an intruder. "I am yours," I felt sick as the memories burned the corners of my eyes, I pictured a sloshing pool of Alice in Wonderland tears, but only my lips trembled woefully. "I have so much to ask you, so much to tell you," my voice was wobbly and pathetic, drifting to Slappy and raising an interest in his emerald eyes, which had so quickly regained their shine. "I missed you Slappy. I missed you so…I thought it had all been a dream, for one horrible moment, I thought I had really imagined it all…"

Trembling deep to my watery bones, I flitted over to the engraved dresser and pulled open the very last drawer, my secret drawer. Inside was the shiny white pocketbook, encasing all of Slappy's things, the only treasures to my name. The antique wedding ring, Madame Louisa's brooch, and Slappy's card with the strange writing, still fresh and glittering in my mind as if they had only just been presented to me. Slappy's eyes widened at the wedding ring, he approached slowly and took it from my palm, admiring the grim glow of the jewel.

"You will tell me everything," he instructed, gripping my hand in his icy fist and fitting the ring over my finger. He slipped it on with such a brutish force I feared my skin would bleed. But gently he stroked my hand, fixing his eyes on me so greedily I began to feel dizzy once more.

"I don't even know where to begin…" my head lolled upon my shoulders, his gaze was so heavy and spell-like.

"Yes you do. The fire, at the orphanage. Tell me if she still lives, that horrible bitch who separated us, who nearly doomed us," somehow we had settled into the bed, and the light had been put out, only the golden moon enwrapped us drowsily.

"Hmm? Madame Louisa? Yes…Richard said she is still alive…" I nestled against Slappy's hard chest, curling into him like I had done as a child, finding it marvelous I could still fit inside the shadowy realm of his arms.

"Listen. We will find her, you and I, and together we will have our revenge,"

I began to giggle, falling into feverish fits of hushed laughter at what Slappy had proposed. "Slappy, I have to get a job…I have to pay Richard back…"

"No! Stop acting foolish. We are together again, and we have to make sure nothing will ever happen to ruin it. The doctor is of no importance to you. You are my bride, and you belong only to me," I felt his fingers twining tight around my hand, the diamond sparkling in the warm moonlight.

"Slappy…I missed you so much," my breath was steady and languid, I only wanted sleep, but there was so much to tell him, so many burdens to relinquish, it would take thousands of deep summery nights.

"I have missed you, Carrie," I felt lips pressed to my hand, cold, carved lips in a queer but rapturous embrace. "Now, tell me if anyone has caused you harm during my absence. They will fall prey to my wrath as well,"


	18. Garden of Evil

Chapter Eighteen ~ Garden of Evil

* * *

><p>I could feel the frustration emanating from Richard's golden skin that morning as he sat at the breakfast table, waiting for the hazelnut coffee I prepared for him every day, beautiful fingers tumbling swiftly through the pages of a newspaper. Upstairs, Hannah was in the childish museum of my bedroom, practicing before the mirror with Slappy, watching proudly as her lips remained still in the pink glass and her voice floated round the room to become his. Richard had announced the week before he wanted to have a party in my honor, and I had promised Hannah she could perform with Slappy for the garland of party guests. She'd been arriving each morning at eight o'clock, a flurry of lime green as she'd greet Richard and I having our breakfast, and hurry up the stairs to bring Slappy to life. The high pitch of her voice swam into Richard's ears routinely and he had begun to complain. I knew he held a dissonance towards Hannah for having his expensive doll house, and it was one of the things we had tried to agree upon over many breakfasts.<p>

"Here is your coffee," I made roses bloom against my lips but he took it from me without looking up. My smile withered and I sank into my place beside him, the pancakes I made growing cold and boggy with syrup. "I think I've found the perfect job,"

"Must we speak of this again, Carrie? You do not need to work, I will give you anything you need," the newspaper rattled in his hands as he forced out an exasperated breath. "And besides, I don't want you working, I like you here, the house has become such a brighter, much more organized space since you've come to live with me," he lowered the paper and his blue eyes danced in the sunlight. I smiled for him, wanting to do anything to make those eyes sparkle forever, but not working only made me feel guilty and wrong; a guest in his house, a freeloader who'd already screwed up and given away a cherished possession.

"I want to pay you back for the doll house. I, I have a thousand dollars saved," I already knew it wasn't enough, but Richard scoffed softly to remind me, "and I'll do whatever I can to get the rest. There, there's a motel on the edge of town, they are hiring singers for their ball room, for the summer,"

"Absolutely not!" Richard snapped the newspaper shut, and my coffee nearly fell from my hands in surprise. "A singer at a motel? Carrie, you'll do nothing of the sort, it's degrading! Filthy to even think of. Don't you know how you'll be ridiculed? Leered at and groped? Overworked and underpaid? No!"

"It's three-hundred for three nights a week! Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Just think of all the money I'll have by the end of the summer!" I reached for his hand but he excused himself from the table and gathered his briefcase. "Richard! I'm doing it, no matter what you say. I love to sing, it's been so long since I've had a place to sing,"

"That's absurd, Carrie! You could sing here, I'll have a piano delivered, anything you need, as long as you do not set foot in a grimy motel,"

"I want to do this for myself," I gripped the velvet back of the chair, the blue dusk of his eyes falling grim and severe, yet still so handsome. "Please, let me,"

A long sigh escaped his lips and he pressed them into my hair. "Whatever my darling wishes for, she shall have it," he gave in, his face lingering at the crown of my head, burning my heart. I reached again for his hand but he drew away. "I guess that you will be going tonight, then?" he questioned, and I nodded obediently. "I'll send for a taxi to take you and wait for you, and then return you home to me, you shall go nowhere else,"

"Whatever my darling wishes for, he shall have it," I giggled, receiving only a queer gaze from my darling before he was gone. Too excited to finish breakfast or even to clean up the sticky dishes, I joined Hannah and Slappy upstairs and opened my closet door, pushing aside the frilly lace dresses to find what I had kept hidden, a purchase I had made when I first saw the Wanted: Motel Ballroom Singer in the paper, the dress to bewitch me into Richard's arms and into the imaginary arms of the audience.

"Carrie, what kinds of sandwiches are going to be at the party? I'm trying to think of a good joke for Slappy to tell, do you think cucumber sandwiches are funny?" Slappy bobbed against her knee as she watched me in the mirror, pale blue satin unfurling past my legs. Intrigued, she laid him on the bed and hurried over to grab at the dress, bunching it up in her hands to fawn over like a mermaid's tail. "It's so beautiful! Is this your dress for the party?"

"No, I'm singing tonight, well, auditioning, and this dress is going to get me everything I want," as I held it against my body I could feel Slappy's eyes rolling around in his head to catch a glimpse of me.

"I didn't know you could sing! Where are you going? Can Slappy and I come? Ooh, maybe we can practice our act after you sing!"

"I'm going alone, neither you or Slappy can join me," I eyed him coolly, splayed on the bed, knowing he had heard me and that he was deeply curious. I stuck my tongue out at Hannah and played with her ruby hair. "The place is called the Lavender Motel, isn't that pretty? When I was your age, I had music classes at the orphanage, and they were the only classes I looked forward to there," I hung the dress from a bedpost; it shone and tapered to the floor, a frozen river, a wicked garment.

I thought of Madame Frieda as I stepped onto the broken stage later that night. I imagined myself in her music room, twisted hands tangled across the piano keys, old eyes twinkling with death as I sung to escape the gloom of the orphanage. Dust clung to the silken trail of my blue dress, the microphone glittered with grime. The motel was run-down, as Richard had predicted, but I didn't care. I loved the smokiness, the old ghostly feel of the room. Decaying glamour. My hands shook as I embedded them round the silver microphone. The dress was as tight as snakeskin.

"And what will you be singing for us, darling?" the owners of the motel, two men in cigarette ash-stained suspenders, kissed at me from the darkness. They pulled cashews from crystal dishes as they waited for me to answer.

"A poem by Judy Garland, my music teacher helped me arrange it into a song, years ago…" I fumbled with the sheet music I had scribbled down from memory, and handed it to the piano player, a flurry of dust skimming between us. Cocooned in my dress, I shut my eyes and waited for the piano strings to resonate. The slimy men sitting on the grey silk couch disappeared from the earth. I wanted to think of Richard, ice blue eyes, the same color as my dress, but behind my back I felt green eyes splintered with black, glass eyes penetrating my skin.

_Darling, it was not my lips you kissed, but my vanishing soul. I opened my tired hand and found, my love was gone and old. I trembled and died, struggling to hide, the deadness of my eyes, the emptiness of my lies. My love is lost, my love is lost. Oh my love is lost.*_

The song poured mournfully from my bones, my voice waking up that deadness and letting it fly out of my mouth. I felt silvery, so haunted, my lids metallic, my lips thorns, the song merging with the dust and lasting, soft as a dream. I was dizzy as I slipped back underneath the tattered velvet curtain, applause ringing in my ears. They wanted me back the next night, but their whistles were drowned out as I saw the figure in the shadows, the green eyes that had been piercing me as I sung, undressing me.

"Slappy! How did you get here? Why did you follow me?" I sank down to the floor, wrapping my arms round him. "Someone will see you, someone will hear me talking to myself like an idiot…" but I began to cry, the tears staining my beautiful dress. The memories of the orphanage savagely overtook my mind, and I was helpless to forget, each tear a broken flower. I knew my song had been for Slappy. I felt his cold hands in my hair and picked him up, ushering us outside into the burning midnight air, where Richard's taxi awaited. I carried him to the heated dark inside.

"Sweetheart, ain't you a little too old to be playing with dolls?" the driver chuckled, immediately puzzled over the strange creature in my arms. It was the first conversation he'd tried to start with me.

"He isn't a doll," I mumbled, protectively twining my arms round Slappy, my heart trembling.

"You need yourself a real man," he winked at me in the mirror, and I shut my eyes tightly, the tears drying and glazing over my cheeks.

"Please, take us home," I felt Slappy capture my fingers tightly in his hand. The driver shrugged and moved on, my dress illuminating the darkness and lighting Slappy's eyes, which never left my tear-stained face. There was no escaping our past.

_My beautiful bride sings a beautiful song for me, and only me. She's forgotten our love. The dust is lifting._

I entered Richard's house finding silence and dark, wishing him still at the hospital. But a light appeared upstairs and soon he descended them, seeing immediately my fresh tears and glaring at the sight of Slappy in my arms. I felt foolish, even in the enchanting dress hugging my body, for wanting him, and thinking he would desire me. My memories forever reduced me to a whimpering child.

"Oh Carrie, my darling, I told you, you shouldn't have gone to such a dreadful place," he cupped my face in his graceful hands, thinking mistakenly that my audition had not gone well.

"No, it isn't that at all," I pulled away from him, a veil of satin passing through his arms. I hurried into my pink room, all tears and silks, and locked the door before he could climb after me. Setting Slappy down upon the bed gently, I walked to the silly painted mirror to look at myself, the melancholy little orphan of misery staring out through my eyes. I loosened a silver barrette from my wheat colored hair, pulling the heavy long waves back from my shoulder. Slappy's eyes glittered in the glass behind me.

"You were beautiful tonight, your song was divine. So tell me, why are you crying?" he spoke in a hushed tone, so that if Richard lingered outside of the door, he could not hear my dummy talking.

"Slappy…" the whisper burned my tongue. I shut my eyes to cut off the tears. "What if I can never forget? All of these terrible things, Madame Louisa, Julia, that awful hospital. I feel so pitiful, and confused,"

He perched himself nobly at the foot of my bed, huge eyes growing intent and lustful for a future evil dream. "I've explained to you what we must do about those things. Julia, I've already taken care of. Louisa, Sebastian, your previous doctors, we are going to hunt them down. And if you won't do it, I will kill them,"

I trembled from the coldness in his voice. I knew killing those who harmed me would change nothing, my hands would be stained a deeper red, my memories dragged lower into a haunted regretful sea. But Slappy had such desire for our revenge I couldn't say no to him. Whatever he wanted, I would die to give him. Sighing, I slipped the pale dress down my body, not shying away from Slappy's delighted gaze, and stepped into my nightgown. As I collapsed into bed I heard the softness of footsteps leading away from my door, someone had bent down to listen and now crept away to sleep.

"He cannot even begin to fathom the thoughts in your head," Slappy said disgustedly, he would never see Richard as warmly as I did. "Why do you fawn over him?"

"Please, let's not talk about him tonight," my pillow printed against my cheek, cool as the moonbeams that spilled into the garden outside. I felt Slappy's fingers entwined through my hair, my lullaby each night. The tears had begun to dry.

"Your hair looks so soft. I wish I could feel it, if only once," I drifted towards the other side of the bed, so that my hair was a canopy for his fingers to explore. "I'm sure your Doctor never dreams about touching your hair," Slappy hissed into my ear, pulling a strand roughly to make my sleepy eyes meet his. "I dream about it all of the time. Touching you, having you. And after our revenge is complete, I promise to make that dream come true,"

* * *

><p>In the garden the three of us lazed about; Slappy, Hannah, and I; while busy bodies lost themselves among the flowers and Richard flitted back and forth between his guests, looking for me everywhere, never bothering to check beneath the orange tulips I had told him I admired so much. Hannah leaned against me as I braided a crown of bluebells into her bright garnet hair, and Slappy sat in Hannah's lap as she attached a lime green bow to his silky suit. We had all decided to wear something green, to ease the nervous fluttering of Hannah's heart. When she performed with Slappy, she'd see me in the audience, a pale green strapless dress whispering under my collarbones, and if she glanced down to catch her breath, she'd see her glittering emerald flip flops to bring her luck.<p>

"I didn't know Richard had _this _many friends! There's so many people…what if I freeze in front of them?"

"You'll be fine, Hannah. Your jokes are precious, everyone will love them. Besides, these aren't Richard's _friends, _only his associates from the hospital," I don't know why I had spoken so coldly of Richard's guests, I guess I was jealous of the attention he lavished upon them, his white teeth glittering in the sunlight as he laughed with them and gave up searching for me. He was touching the nude arm of a beautiful woman in a floral dress, probably a nurse he was closely acquainted with. I seethed quietly to myself and finished Hannah's crown.

"I'm going to get some more of that raspberry tea, do you want anything Carrie?" Hannah asked when she'd finished admiring the halo of blue petals in her hair.

"No, I'll stay here with Slappy, we'll wait for you," I had already consumed nearly a basketful of shortbread cookies cut to resemble daisies, thick with vanilla frosting. Richard had really gone all out with the catering; cream cheese finger sandwiches, a thousand kinds of tea and wine, a white chocolate cake, blueberry crumbles and peach pies and bowls and bowls of glimmering strawberries growing juicy in the heat. Blue porcelain tea cups were strewn all about the garden, left sitting on iron chairs and next to the white sweet pea flowers. The silver creamers and teapots reflected the sunlight into my eyes, and I laid down in the thick summery grass, slowly collecting Slappy in my arms.

"Here she is! I've found my darling Carrie!"

My eyes peered out from beneath my hand and Richard was there, towering over me, a throng of his colleagues threaded about his arms, all clutching their silver plates holding thickly frosted cake slices. Their eyes took in Slappy, sliding coolly back to one another with murmurs of 'crazy' bubbling up inside their perfect lids.

"Carrie! Come on, love, get up and say hello. I'm sure you probably remember a few of my friends, from your stay at our hospital," Richard's sculpted smile cringed painfully as I raised myself up from the lovely bed of grass, bringing Slappy with me.

"Hello Carrie, wonderful to see you again," a flood of voices spilled over me, I recognized no one. My cheeks burned with shame, remembering how I had ended up in their care. Instinctively I pressed Slappy closer to my chest. "And who is this? Aren't you a little too old to still be playing with dolls?" some of them chuckled, but their eyes gleamed cruel and taunting.

"Oh, that is her dummy, she calls him Slappy. Not particularly a doll, he's an important figure in her life, he was her best friend when Carrie was a small child. And now," Richard sighed and lowered his lashes; I could see the embarrassment brimming in his face. "And now they are still inseparable,"

"I think that's just adorable!" the woman whose arm had been touched gingerly by Richard giggled, and sipped from her glass of wine.

"You shall see more of Slappy soon, for Hannah here is going to be putting on a puppet show for you all," Richard announced as Hannah came to my side, her hands stained burgundy where the raspberry tea had sloshed from her full paper cup.

"Well, aren't you just as sweet as Carrie! You two look about the same age, don't they Richard? Carrie looks _so _like a little girl, it's too funny!"

I realized I hadn't spoken a word since Richard's flock had swept down upon me, my tongue was knotted into a vial of blood. I could feel Slappy too, stirring impatiently in my arms, his movement as gentle but dark as a dying breath. Before Richard could click his tongue and suggest his group move on, Slappy had swung out his arm and shattered the glass of the nurse, a spray of dark purple foaming against her dress and staining it forever, a pool of blood across her stomach. Richard's face went scarlet with anger, only I could hear Slappy's cackle as sharp as a diamond in my ear.

"You clumsy little freak!" the woman shrieked, dropping the remaining stem of her glass into the flower bed.

"It wasn't Carrie!" Hannah rounded on the woman. "It was me, I wanted to practice one more time, so I tried to take Slappy but my hand squeezed the wrong lever. It was an accident, lady!" she covered her mouth with her little fingers and snickered playfully.

"Do you have any idea how much this dress cost? It was straight from the runway, you thoughtless child," the nurse wiped and wiped at her dress bitterly, bruising satin napkins with the deep purple color.

"Someone left that dress at an airport runway? It sure is ugly enough, are those supposed to be skid marks or flowers?" Hannah grinned innocently, and even my solemn lips cracked into a tiny smile. I pinched her arm lightly to tell her we should go and prepare for the puppet show. As we scurried out of the brightness and into the blackened kitchen, I glanced longingly over my shoulder at Richard, whose gaze deepened with scorn as he watched me disappear. It would take him a long time to forgive me. I bit my lip and thought he deserved it, flirting with that awful woman and leaving me alone in the orange tulips. A scandal for his party, and another one to come.

"It was very childish of you to ruin Jacqueline's dress, and allow Hannah to take the blame," Richard's fingers wrapped tightly about my arm, his whisper a death to my heart. I had been standing beside the marble fountain, gardenias blooming at my feet, listening to Hannah and Slappy as they dove into their comedy act. Now Richard lingered with me, the summery heat of his body merging with mine. I breathed in his cologne and scanned the audience for 'Jacqueline', who was nowhere to be seen. I smirked and let myself sink into his grip. A warm breeze tangled my hair across his chest, and I knew his eyes were closed. He was so angry with me, but enjoying it, his hand had slipped to decorate my waist.

"Gee, it's been swell living with Carrie. She sure is a heavy sleeper! Lucky for me, she doesn't saw logs in her sleep!" Hannah snorted in her high mouse-like voice designed for Slappy. I brought my hands to my mouth and giggled, she was so adorable and brave, I had been nothing like her at her age. I felt so happy for her, free in her childhood and relishing in the audience that she was so grandly entertaining. Life was nothing but a dream for her, while mine had been tinged with nightmares.

"Slappy, you love Carrie, don't you? Are you going to ask her to marry you?"

I held my breath, and felt the garden dissolve around me, leaving only shadows. I heard Slappy's voice before Hannah could make him answer. His deep green eyes went black in the burning sunlight. My body grew cold at the smile I knew so well twisting itself to life upon his face. The audience was grossly disturbed at this new voice, and the disgusting things that spilled from the bobbing wooden mouth.

"Carrie and I are already married, and we are waiting to consummate our love. Carrie is my beautiful wife whom I cannot wait to make scream for me. And I am the only one who shall have her." the slits of his burnt emerald eyes hounded upon Richard. "Doctor Night is an ignorant swine who is unworthy of touching Carrie, who can't even dream of taking her to bed because of his dead wife still haunting his memory. Poor, poor Doctor Night! Who hasn't gotten any in years, yeah, I saw the Viagra buddy, collecting dust in your medicine cabinet. Guess you couldn't even get it hard when your wife was alive!"

Richard's fingers filled with blood as they gripped me harder, Slappy spewing his hate before the revolted audience, his manic laughter splitting the pure air, and poor Hannah pushing living Slappy to the ground, the light taken from her small face. She was traumatized, frozen before the crowd who couldn't believe she had the gall to speak such sinful words to her elders. Words she had never even heard before, now embedded in her head. Her dream had become nightmare, too. The bluebell crown was twisted limply in her hair; I grew sick and faint and swayed in Richard's arms. Hannah was alone in the evil garden Slappy had shown her, a flurry of guests leaving her to wither, throwing glares of blazing disgust at me before their departure.

"You told her to say those things, didn't you?" Richard shook me, twirling me round to search my eyes with his smoldering ones. "Carrie! What's wrong with you? How could you do something like this?"

I looked back to Hannah, her mouth quivering with fear and the large teacups of her eyes never leaving Slappy's inert body in the grass, terrified of him coming to life again to shout in her face. Tearing away from Richard I ran to her, picking up Slappy and clutching her sweating hand, pulling her with me no matter how she cried and protested. We crawled through the thick green curtain of ivy separating her house from Richard's, and I dragged her into her own home, not stopping until we collapsed in her bedroom, my head nearly hitting the doll house Richard had given me. Hannah screamed and crawled away from me, tightening her hands round her bedpost and panting with terror.

"Hannah, I'm so sorry," I gasped, catching my ragged breath. "I'm so sorry, please don't be afraid," I reached out for her, wanting to straighten the bluebells twined about her head. She screeched and moved towards her closet, her eyes locked onto Slappy, waiting for him to move again.

"Your dummy is alive! He's evil!"

"No, Hannah, please listen to me, please. I should have told you earlier, I should have told you my secret. Our secret," I dusted ribbons of grass from Slappy's suit and wrapped my arms about him. "Don't be scared, see? Slappy won't hurt you," his painted lips curled into a treacherous smile, and Hannah whimpered. "Hannah, it's all right. Slappy _is_ alive. He has been alive for a long time. And he is my best friend,"

Hannah's grip on her closet door loosened, and she edged out from a pile of shoes curiously.

"He won't hurt you, I promise. I'm sorry, Hannah. I'm sorry he said those horrible things, and that you had to hear them. He didn't want to scare you, it's just," I bit my lip, which tasted like shortbread. How could I possibly explain Slappy's jealousy of Richard to Hannah? "Slappy doesn't like Richard; he wanted to embarrass him today. And he used you to say things he's been wanting to say for a long time," I slightly nudged Slappy in the back, and he looked up at me grumpily.

"He's really your friend?" Hannah had inched closer, but wouldn't dare come near enough for Slappy to grab her. I nodded sweetly, and wished Slappy would apologize, but knew it was beneath him to take the blame for anything. I decided to take my turn at puppeteering him, and pushed the lever in his back, turning his scowl into an alarming smile. I played with his eyebrows and moved them up and down like waves. Laughing at the way he scrambled to gain control of himself, pulling his arms so he couldn't struggle free. My strange dancing little troll.

"Hey, cut that out!" Slappy demanded, and the smallest smile crept onto Hannah's face, she began to giggle at his lanky, distorted movement, like a blackbird thrashing about in a pool of water too deep, fighting for air. I began to sing an old swing tune and made Slappy kick his legs up, which made Hannah howl. Slappy struggled so hard to be free I could no longer torture him, I hugged him and adored him and waited for Hannah to join us. She came close enough for me to stroke her hair, and straighten the forlorn crown of bluebells so that she was vibrant and shining once more. Still afraid to touch Slappy, but unafraid of the secret that was now ours to keep.

* * *

><p>*The beautiful poem written by Judy Garland is called 'My Love is Lost', I have changed words to fit the melody inside Carrie's head<p> 


	19. Pool of Tears

Chapter Nineteen ~ Pool of Tears

* * *

><p>I found Richard that night, downstairs in his study buried by bookshelves and spice-scented curtains. Standing in the doorway, I hid my hands behind my back and waited for him to lift his eyes and see me, dressed in my sheer nightgown. His brow darkened and he deepened his focus to the book in his hands, pretending he hadn't noticed I was there. Hannah's doomed puppet show had been a great embarrassment for him. The guests had sympathized, understanding it was not his intention for the performance to head into such a ghastly direction. That left Hannah and I to bear the equal burden of shame; they thought I had put her up to it, and that she was a foolish, dirty-minded little girl to go along with the act. I had become a monster for teaching Hannah to speak such revolting words, and Richard was now a saint for putting up with my insanity. It hurt to imagine him thinking of me that way, as nothing but a mad girl whom he should lock away in the farthest, coldest part of the attic. I couldn't bear for him to believe I had taught Hannah those filthy words, but telling him the truth about Slappy was out of the question.<p>

"May I come in?" I whispered, my voice soft as the froth of lace decorating my gown. He raised his eyes to meet mine, bits of black clouding the periwinkle. The leather and pepper scents dancing round the room filled my head and made me quite dizzy as his eyes lowered, seeing through my nightdress.

A weary sigh poured heavily from his mouth. "Of course, Carrie," he snapped the book shut, running his fingers over its glossy spine. I quietly stepped to the plush leather chair where he sat, and climbed into his lap like a child, my long gown pooling across his legs. The vivid surprise in his eyes delighted me. I smiled to myself and rested my head against his chest, hearing his heart beat with lush blood. How strange it felt, I thought of all the times Slappy and I had lain together like this, and the silence that rose from his hollow chest. I had forgotten the sound a heart made, how warm and thrilling a real body could feel.

"Please don't be mad at me," I breathed into his collar, raising goosebumps on the flesh of his neck. I felt his body go rigid and uneasy as I pressed myself against him, the beat of his heart welling with blood, loud as a drum.

"Carrie, would you please sit in the chair next to mine?"

"Say you aren't mad at me, say you won't lock me away," I clung to his shirt, inhaling the rich scent of his living skin. He stopped trying to lift me and his hands came to stroke my hair, his arms wrapped me up, inviting me into his cocoon.

"I would never lock you away, I would never want to do such a thing," his voice skimmed the top of my head, thick as velvet. "Whatever happened this afternoon, I, I know you meant no harm. And Hannah is a child. She does not understand the words she must have heard spoken between her parents," his throat dulled with pain, the memory of those words stung him terribly.

"I'm so sorry," I shut my eyes, not wanting to think of Vanessa, or of his love for her. It hurt me more than the thought of being locked away.

"There is no need to apologize, Carrie," his arm slipped to my waist and took my cold hand into his. "I just want to forget it. We will both forget it," his voice grew fainter, flowers of sleep blooming along his tongue and teeth. I took his arm and wrapped it round myself tightly, curling my legs atop his and raising my lips to kiss his languid mouth. A dazed murmur floated out and I placed a delicate kiss to the hollows of each closed eyelid. He was so tired, his long body so hungry for sleep. I moved without a sound from the warmth of his lap, and bent down by his feet to undo his shoes for him. I thought how uncomfortable he would be sleeping in an odd seated position, so I lifted his legs and settled them into the puffy leather settee next to his chair. I ruffled his silken black hair, turned out the burning light and left him in dreams.

Upstairs, Slappy waited upon my bed, his acrid eyes flashing with anger and jealousy. "You were in his study for quite awhile," he said to me, watching as I rummaged about for my lotion and powder. "Well, what happened? Is he sending us away? Or did you change his mind?"

I glared at Slappy and shook out my damp hair. "He was never going to send us away, he isn't angry. Richard is kind, Slappy. I owe so much to him," the powder fell into my hands like fresh snow and I decorated my body in its white sweetness.

"What does that smell like?" Slappy's eyes sparked with fascination, the soft powder sprinkled down my arms, legs, and neck.

I giggled and showed him the bottle. "Lilies of the valley. They are fresh, sweet, beautiful flowers. It smells, like heaven I suppose,"

Slappy's eyes grew larger and larger as I put the lotion on next. His greedy, famished gaze annoyed me so I looked around my room, finding myself all the more annoyed and tired of the porcelain dolls, pink lacy borders, sugarplum globes and pastel trinkets. I couldn't stay here any longer, the room was a shrine to a long dead princess, the little princess Richard had wanted me to be all those years ago. He would never see me the way I wanted him to if I remained in this innocent room. I gathered up my powder and lotion, a few other toiletries and my white pocketbook, and crept into the dark hallway.

The door to Vanessa's dressing room was ajar, perfume-haunted shadows seeping from the crack. I slid in and the cold hissed against my skin, telling me I didn't belong there. I frightened her ghost away by turning on the light and setting my belongings on her sleek pearl vanity table. In the silver mirror I grinned at my reflection, washing away any trace of her comely face.

"What do you think you're doing?" Slappy spoke from the hall, the disapproval of his voice grating my skin as I hurried past him to gather more of my things. "Your doctor will be furious. He'll catch on to this little game, Carrie. You'll never replace his wife," I pushed past him again, letting the silk of my dresses smother his face and cutting off his cruel taunting. "Or, maybe he will be pleased that you've taken over her room. He'll make you become her, he will kill your soul to replace it with hers, and will you still love him then?"

"Please, stop it," I whimpered, and sat down before my new dressing table. I touched Vanessa's jeweled necklaces and rings, the perfume bottles where pale liquid was frozen in time. Slappy grudgingly came in and crawled into the white satin bed.

"It's covered in dust!" he pretended to sneeze, and I laughed, plopping down beside him as the dust floated to the ceiling.

It was so different with Slappy, his body hard and shiny, his chest cold as clay and empty of sound. We lay beneath the moldy coverlet and I longed for Richard's warmth, for the drumming of his velvet blood. My face burned with shame as Slappy stared, knowing my thoughts. A stiff, icy hand reached for mine and gripped it.

"When will we take our revenge, my bride? When will we have our wedding night?"

I turned my face away from him, my head sinking into the old feathers and gossamer satin. "Soon…" I murmured, wanting him to stop asking so much of me.

"My bride," his whisper burned like a kiss. "We have to be the same. I must become human,"

"Soon…"

"Is that a promise?"

"Mmhm, yes," the coldness of the room swept over me like water, pulling me deep into slumber and away from Slappy's prying voice. I tried to remember what I had just promised him, but the cold embraced me and sleep beckoned, sleep that bore me away from his consuming love.

* * *

><p>Blood-colored leaves slipped against my window in the frozen mornings. It was late September, and Hannah had been spending all of her time away from me. Her parents had decided to enroll her in an expensive private school after they heard about the language spewed during the garden party. She hadn't liked it at first, curling up in my old bedroom (which I told her was now hers) and telling Slappy and I of the loneliness she felt there, the whispers and snickering floating behind her back, the itchiness of her plaid skirt and corduroy vest, the bare wood-paneled walls and the deep green swimming pool in the gymnasium (Hannah was terrified of swimming). But suddenly there had been new friends to enter her life, two cold-hearted girls named Rebecca and Liesel who got Hannah into trouble at school, who were darkening her heart with the combined cruelty of theirs. Hannah began to fade before my eyes, turning against me when I couldn't understand what I had done wrong. She rarely came over to play anymore, and when she did visit, her eyes were hard and mean. She refused to spend time in my old bedroom, and took interest in Vanessa's dressing room as I had done. She never spoke to Slappy.<p>

I didn't want her bringing Rebecca and Liesel to the house, I didn't want our secret to be shared. But as Halloween slowly arrived, the girls came round looking for a scare, believing that a living dummy would be just the thing to stir their holiday spirit. Hannah brought them over as I was cooking supper for Richard, Slappy soundly resting upstairs. She let herself in and I heard their school shoes clicking excitedly as they ran up the stairs in search of him. I found her sitting on the bed, Slappy lying limply across her lap, her small ringed hand smacking his cheek furiously.

"Stop it!" I cried, ripping Slappy from her grasp. "Hannah! What are you doing? Why would you hit him like that?"

"Oh my god Hannah, is she going to cry?" one of the girls laughed at me, her eyes full of scorn.

"Hannah, why did you bring these girls here? I told you I never wanted to meet them," I clung tightly to Slappy, who remained lifeless in my trembling arms.

"They wanted to see Slappy. Make him move, Carrie! Why isn't he talking?" I could see Hannah wanted to cry, she wanted to take my hand and go back to her old life, but with her new friends waiting to be impressed, she would have thrown Slappy into a bonfire just to win over their approval.

"No, Hannah, Slappy won't visit with you today,"

"I knew it was all a lie! You and Carrie just pretend that dummy is alive, don't you Hannah? You're such a baby. I can't believe you still play with toys," the black-headed girl snarled. I knew she was Liesel, Hannah had told me Liesel's mother took her to the salon to have her pale brown hair dyed to ebony.

"Slappy isn't a toy," I snarled back at her, wanting to gag her mouth with that velvet cape of smoky hair.

"Aren't you supposed to be in college? Maybe for Hannah it's lame to play with toys, but for you to do it, it's just pathetic. And you even talk to him like he's alive. You must be crazy," Rebecca's eyes cut me like a knife, waiting for me to snap back. I felt my skin peeling off in layers. "Are you crazy too, Hannah? Should we tell the school shrink to lock you up in the basement, where the swimming pool is?" instead she turned on Hannah, her tiny rosebud mouth shrinking into a sneer.

Hannah looked at me pitifully, and I knew she had left me forever. I was too painful to keep as a friend, I would only drag her down into the dust where they'd treat her like a stain and make school unbearable for her. Innocence was no longer important to her, and I knew I had helped in destroying it. I felt my face burn where the tears dropped and stung. "I'm not crazy. Carrie made me believe Slappy was real; she played a trick on me. It's her they should lock up in the basement,"

"What a freak!" the girls cried, and began to giggle as the tears shined on my face.

"Yeah, I shouldn't have been friends with her in the first place. Let's go, guys, come on," Hannah wouldn't dare look at me, she hung her head in shame as she led Rebecca and Liesel out of the room, all of them shrieking with laughter as they passed the bedroom Richard wanted me to have. As they bounded down the stairs in a flurry of skirts and knee-socks, Hannah turned her head one last time to see the dolls and trinkets she had coveted, the childish things she wanted to hold on to forever, but were now tainted. I slammed my bedroom door before she could raise those woeful eyes to mine, and crumpled to the floor, weeping into Slappy's hard chest. I sobbed until I felt his smooth hand tangled in my hair.

* * *

><p>"Carrie? Carrie, darling. You haven't left your room for four days," Richard's silhouette is outlined by golden shadow in my doorframe, he speaks softly and peers into the dark, seeing Slappy beside me in the white bed, my arms frozen around his body. Even in the shadows I see the irritation lining his face.<p>

"How would you know that? You're never here,"

He makes no effort to step into the haunted room, I've opened the bottles of Vanessa's perfume collection and sprayed each scent upon my wrists and throat, damp violets and burned rose petals. I am dressed in her nightgown, pale red lace flooding my body, pooling across the satin sheets. Richard says nothing but his face is grim and tight with disapproval. "Carrie, you know that isn't true. I know I have been working very much lately, but I am always here for you,"

"Why won't you come in? Please, come lie down with me," I scrape away the dried tears on my cheeks and as I loosen my grasp from Slappy's waist, he becomes tense and frantic, his eyes deathly alive with jealousy. "See? I moved Slappy, there is room for you,"

"Carrie…it isn't appropriate," Richard lowers his eyes to the thick white carpet, his sharp face softening as he blushes.

"Please, I've felt so alone," my voice rises from the bed, a glittering whisper.

"Oh darling, I know you're still upset by Hannah's actions," he sweeps into the room, keeping his gaze away from the dressing table where his dead wife's treasures glisten in the faint moonlight. He reaches for the velvet chair but I hold my hand out to him, pleading for his body to fall next to mine. "Carrie,"

"Please,"

The warmth of his long limbs gathers in a pool beside me, and I shut my eyes, sinking into his living body, the coldness of my own skin vanishing as my head fits into the garden of his collarbones. He is rigid with unease but begins to relax as we lay in silence, my trembling hands softly touching the fabric of his shirt, where his heart beats steadily beneath. His freezing eyes puncture the dark and find mine, bright and burning with greed.

"I like this," he gazes at the poppy-colored nightgown, my body shining through the gossamer lace, my blood singing for him. "It's beautiful," he touches the thin tendrils of silk tied to my shoulders, playing with them delicately. His face lightens, as if spellbound. Our breaths grow heavy in the humid dark, I feel his heart beating rapidly now, pressed against my searing hand.

"I love you, Richard," I cannot keep it from him anymore, my blood sings and my skin opens, pouring the disease into his hands. I don't care that Slappy is watching us with his maddened eyes. I urge Richard's fingers to untie the straps of my gown, and I let it slip down my body as I crawl atop him, printing my lips against his and drinking desperately. His hands gently pull my hair away from my back, and I feel his fingers threaded down my spine as he returns the kiss. He picks me up and lays me down beneath him, sliding me out of my gown as my head sinks back, over the edge of the bed, my ragged hair skimming the carpeted floor.

"Carrie," he whispers against my throat, and kisses it tenderly. "Oh, my Carrie…" the weight of his body collapses atop mine, and I am painted in furious kisses. My throat, my shoulders, my breasts and waist blooming into his mouth. The kisses are washed away by cold tears, and Richard is no longer devouring me, he lays across my stinging body weeping.

"Carrie, I love you, but," he struggles to raise himself from the sheets, and I lock my fingers in his hair, drawing his face back to mine. He shuts his eyes and clenches both of my wrists in his hand, and with his other, he pulls the nightgown over my chest. "Carrie, I love you my darling, but not like this," he releases my red wrists and strokes my sweating face with his long finger. "We cannot live like this,"

He surfaces, leaving me in bed, already grown cold by his rejection. I cradle my arms against my chest, my eyes glitter and my breathing is as slow as death. His kisses and tears decorate my rotting skin. He doesn't want me. He will never see me as I want him to; he wants me to be the little princess he gave his heart to, the little girl he was supposed to rescue from the orphanage. I am forever a child in his eyes, a child who should not have the desires of a woman. The desires that frighten him as if they were the wants of beasts.

Crawling up to my pillow, I bury my face into the icy satin and scream. Richard doesn't come back to soothe me. My screams are florid with poison, trapped in the threads of satin and collecting back into my mouth, where they are swallowed like secrets. I lift my head to see Slappy beside me, his star-filled green eyes torturing me, loving me. I had forgotten him in the shadows, and I scream again for the shame. His stiff arms imprison me, and he kisses me with cold wooden lips. In return, I kiss him with my parched lips, drawing rosy blood.

"There now. It will feel better, you will see," he is delighted by my blood dripping from his mouth, and pulls the covers around me, letting droplets of it stain the satiny white. As he smoothes back the tangled hair from my forehead, a drop of scarlet splashes onto my skin, trickling past my eye like a tear. "I will make everything better," his voice smothers me, like smoke, and I smile, giving him all of my sweetness. I will never forsake him again.


	20. Who Will Love Me Now?

Chapter Twenty ~ Who Will Love Me Now?

* * *

><p>"<em>Children have no fear of their dolls coming to life, they may even desire it"<br>_-Sigmund Freud

* * *

><p>My lips, red rose lips deliciously kissed to the point of soreness, are cracked, splintered and stitched with thorns of dried blood. I keep them closed, holding Slappy in my arms as Richard enters the kitchen for breakfast. He attempts not to look at me, the memory of the night before still fresh and disturbing in his mind, my innocent skin touched by his dazed mouth. But he sees my soiled lips, and nearly drops his coffee. Slappy, in my arms, has my blood upon his lips, too. A smile pressed against my poppy-colored blood. Horrified, Richard stares at me, it takes all of the patience in the world for him to gather his courage, to sit down across from me at the table, to look at my bloodied mouth, and not be revolted.<p>

"Carrie," he begins, gripping the cup in his fingers, they turn bright red from the heat. "We must talk,"

I remain silent, my mouth plush with scars.

"Last night, I thought of how I should try to help you. I thought of how to put an end to this,"

Slappy tenses in my arms; his movement has become an eternal heartbeat within my body. Still, I do not speak.

"Carrie, you are still ill. Very, very ill my love. You invent things, you place your imaginings inside your dummy, you pretend he is real. You do this in order to forget the trauma you experienced under Madame Louisa's care,"

Care? That woman, able to care for a child? I feel Slappy seethe with me, united we are in our lust for revenge.

"I think you should go back, Carrie, into psychiatric care. I would be with you, this time. I will regulate the treatments you receive, and communicate with your doctors in order to achieve success. It will not be like the care you experienced before, I promise you that. No one will attempt any sort of treatment upon you unless they have my ultimate permission,"

I grow cold under his gaze. His eyes are tired of me, tired of drawing me in, of the madness that looks back at him. He can no longer see the innocent girl he loved so long ago. He is ready to be rid of me. Richard abandoning me, the fear is like a horrible blanket of poison covering me, suffocating me. I never wanted him to give up. I only wanted to be with him, to regain our lost world. And his final thought of me is to send me back to the place he knows will ruin me, to lock me away there, forever. Slappy slips tenderly down my lap, between my legs and onto the floor, the thud of his head comes to me like a sound from underwater.

"Carrie? Are you alright?" Richard's voice, too, is slimy and quivering, rising from a water grave.

The tears sting my lips bitterly, my raw mouth burns and I shut it tight. Richard, stricken by grief, tears himself from the table. Standing at the back of my chair, his hands are tremulous with fear as he gently touches my shoulders. And the tears gush onto my tongue as my lips rip open. I scream and the fresh scars split at the seam, blood leaks from my lips and dots the linen tablecloth, little hells in the snow. I crawl beneath the table to where Slappy is, and scream.

"Carrie!" Richard loses his patience, overturning my chair, reaching for my legs. I kick his hands away just like a child would. "This is outrageous!" his palms slam down upon the table, I see underneath as it trembles, wishing it would fall down and crush me to death. He takes his coffee and hurls it at the wall, the cream inside splashing and soiling the velvety wallpaper, crumbs of china scattering over the floor and under the table where I fall silent, weeping and clutching Slappy.

"Carrie, we will discuss this further tonight. I am already late, as it is. You are behaving the way a selfish, rotten child would behave. It is humiliating. You are _not_ the only one in pain,"

I see his shining black shoes disappear from the room, and the violent slam of the front door stops my crying. I hold Slappy's icy hand in my own and look it over, wishing on his still fingers that I could go back.

"Please, Slappy, I want to go back. I want to go back to the orphanage, to when I was a little girl. Please, Slappy, use your magic. Please take me back. I want to go with Richard, and Vanessa, when they come. I want to go back and I want to go home with them. I want nothing terrible to ever have happened to Richard. Please, Slappy," I whisper so fiercely into his frozen fingers that I am startled when they move.

"I'm beginning to agree with your Doctor, you are behaving like a selfish, rotten child," his cackling voice is like a sliver of glass, embittering the quiet under the table. "What about my happiness?"

I start to cry again from the cruel look flowering in his eyes. "I don't want any of this, I just want to go back,"

"You don't want to punish Louisa? You don't want to have our revenge? You don't want to marry me?"

"I just want to be a child again, I want Richard to—"

Slappy's hand is heavy and brutal as it collides with my mouth. The scars burst again, a tiny river of blood splashes onto my wrists as I bow my head in shame.

"Richard is not important! Think about what you need to do. Think about what you promised me,"

"Slappy, not you, too. Please don't hurt me," I wept, my hair covering me, protecting me. I want to feel as small as a child, hidden in the forest of my hair.

"I'm sorry, my bride. Forgive me, but you promised today would be the day," I can feel his eyes pierce through the nest of my hair, his tone isn't forgiving.

Halloween. Today is Halloween. The day Slappy and I will travel to Rose Hill Orphanage. And the day our marriage will be consummated.

"Do not forget what we have planned. Do not forget what we must do. Louisa is the pinnacle of your suffering. She is the one who kept you from the precious world that Doctor promised you. Don't you want to hurt her? You finally have the chance, and I will be with you, I will be with you,"

My wet mouth twists with fear. I feel sickened by Slappy's words, and consumed. I never imagined I would have the strength to return to the orphanage, but dreaming of the world I could have shared with Richard warms me, and the thought of Louisa paying for it brings me a satisfaction that burns. I let my hatred bloom, it is so warm and beautiful. Slappy's lips are pressed to mine again, a kiss to harvest the fire.

* * *

><p>The path under my feet is emblazoned with crisp golden leaves. Richard has not had the time to rake them, but I imagine he wouldn't do it himself. He probably has a gardener he calls for that. I walk with Slappy folded in my arms, looking back at the house and chewing my chapped lips so I will not cry. When I return, Richard will send me away. The thought is worse than an entire life spent mouldering at Rose Hill Orphanage.<p>

"Stop thinking about him, let's get going," Slappy snarls impatiently.

I look to Hannah's house; the pale curtains of her bedroom window are drawn. I remember giving her the elaborate dollhouse, and the thought of her playing with it in secret makes me smile. A melancholic smile, but still, a smile for Hannah. She has a chance. I think of her at school, now, in the clutches of her snotty friends. I should have written her a letter before leaving. My heart pounds at the idea but Slappy's body jolts suddenly, a morning jogger is passing by the house with her dog, whose fur is the same gold shade of autumn leaves.

"Morning," she calls, frowning at Slappy. I know how ridiculous I must look standing in the field of leaves, a haunted child clutching an antique dummy to her chest, silent and strange. Maybe she thinks I really am a child, that I've missed the bus to school and my parents have already left for work. Pathetic. The glistening black eyes of her dog look up at Slappy and he whimpers, pulling his owner along.

"Stupid dog," Slappy cackles, and I want to cry. The dog was so lovely, and so innocent, as he runs the cool sunshine illuminates his silky fur. The woman turns back to look at me once more, and then they disappear round the corner.

"Why did you have to frighten him?" I whisper as my feet begin to carry me.

"What are you blaming me for? I didn't do anything to that dog," Slappy hisses back.

"We can't argue like this, Slappy. People will think I am mental," my hair blows gently into my face, sticking to my aching mouth.

"There is nothing to argue about, because I didn't scare the stupid dog. It is nice to know you care more about a worthless animal than you do me, my bride,"

I shut my eyes against the bright sunshine, dreaming of dropping Slappy, of his body shattering into pieces of sawdust against the silver concrete. And in shame I hug him tightly to my chest, protecting him from the cold wind.

Richard's neighborhood dissolves into a quiet town past the silver gate. There is a coffee shop, an ice cream store, a library and a video rental shop. The cosy street reminds me achingly of Miriam and Floyd, the antique store they owned where I hunted through piles of toys like a beast for Slappy. I peer through the window of the video shop, a rosy bloom of shame burns my cheeks as I dream of leaving Slappy there, of running away and never coming back. Of never having to answer to Slappy's wishes, or causing Richard pain.

"Slappy, I never wanted Richard to be so angry with me. I never wanted you to hate him. I don't know what to do, I feel so lost,"

"Stop worrying about him, I have a grand plan to make everything work in our favor. Now we need to focus only on Louisa,"

The pure hatred in his voice frightens me. "You aren't going to hurt him, are you?"

"No, you will still have him, forever, just like you want," I wait until we have passed a coffee shop to look at Slappy, and he grins back, his eyes acrid-green and oily and scheming, always scheming.

"If you hurt him, I will never marry you,"

"You will marry me! You promised, all those years ago! I will not forget!" his voice rises up in a demonic howl. The people sitting outside of the coffee shop give me scornful looks. I want to throw his greedy body into the gutter, but I grasp him tightly and run. The dead street is a golden sea of leaves, as I run they flurry and cling to my black stockings. My wet eyes look desperately at each sign I pass, hardly remembering the way back to the orphanage. The orange morning mist has settled and the street begins to come alive. People stop to stare and I ignore their scathing faces. Even from store windows, their faces are like pumpkins behind glass, menacing Jack-O-Lanterns laughing at the pitiful girl cradling her weird dummy. I want to sink into the dry, wispy pit of leaves but I keep running. The cold air stings my lungs, I can feel my heart blackening, a rotting diamond.

"Slappy, I, I can't remember where…"

"There!" he growls, and I nearly drop him in surprise.

The black building is half burned away, rotting and frozen in a fire-damaged nightmare. Putrid boards hang awkwardly round the house, windows shattered and gaping. Ivy and weeds choke the porch steps in a tangle of dried brown ribbons. The garden where I had sat so long ago with Richard and Vanessa is now a casket of leaves and ashes. There was a dying smell in the air, a moldering sweetness. The blood blush of the leaves seemed to taunt me as I stepped across them, slowly, my grip around Slappy's middle becoming tighter and tighter. I felt dizzy and sat down upon the little bench, burying my face into Slappy's tuxedo.

"This isn't the time to get cold feet!" he hissed, his voice as dry as the dead leaves.

"Slappy, seeing this place again, I, I remember everything. I remember sitting here, with Richard and Vanessa. Don't you?"

"I remember you keeping me from ripping the bastard's hand off," he cackled.

"And I remember the fire. Just there is where they held me as I screamed for you. And there," ignoring him, I pointed to a patch of weedy grass. "Is where Madame Louisa laid on her stretcher,"

"She is still here,"

"Slappy, how can she still live here? Look at this place, it's crumbling into dust,"

"I know she is still here,"

I said nothing, staring up at the spectral house and feeling hollowed out from the inside with fear.

"It is time to go inside,"

"The door is chained, look," if we couldn't get inside, then I'd never have to remember, I'd never have to smell the haunted hallways of my childhood, or see Louisa's face again.

"Through the window, then," Slappy ordered.

I trembled walking through the coffin of leaves, the sound of crisply broken vegetation drowned out the pounding in my ears. All of the windows were smashed; I only had to chose the simplest to crawl through. My dress hung on a shard and ripped as I followed Slappy inside, the pale-rose shred of fabric reminded me of the marionette dress I'd worn as a child, here in the sitting room where Richard had told me to wait for him. I wrapped my arms around myself; the cold was horrible, trickling into my veins like disease.

"There's no time to take a stroll down memory lane," Slappy was already ascending the cobwebbed staircase to where my room had been.

I walked in a daze, peering into the kitchen, the dining hall, all darkened and covered in silence. It was like being in a tomb, the house trapped in a premature burial. I shuddered looking into the laundry room, where Julia had struck my head with a broom, and where Slappy had murdered her. I could hear his footsteps above me, his shining shoes clacking on the floors which had not been swept for a decade.

Shivering, I climbed the staircase of my youth, each step pulling me gently back into a dark childhood. Touching the banister made me gasp with fright, it was shrouded in soft cobwebs that clung to my fingertips. I brushed them against the hem of my dress but still felt soiled, dirtied, sinful.

"Where are you?" Slappy called, and his voice nearly sent me spiraling back down the stairs.

"Please, don't shout," I said weakly, my voice as faded as the long-spun cobwebs. "Slappy, I'm so frightened,"

"Come in here,"

I followed his voice into the playroom, where he sat rocking back and forth in the old rocking chair, the very place where we had first met.

"It's so cold here," I began to cry.

The deep scarlet wallpaper had been burned and blackened. It peeled away in slim bloody strips. Ripped from the walls where Rhonda, Peter and Harold had crouched, a little corner where their flamed bodies had been, attempting to protect one another. The carpet was smeared and coated with ash, and shreds of curled wallpaper crushed inside of the fibers. The shadowed air was oppressive, they had all died here, burned alive, and they were still here, in the peeling bones of this house. All because of Louisa and her wicked ways.

"Stop crying," Slappy scolded me.

"I remember we were playing here, when it happened. When Madame Louisa started the fire,"

"It was not play, it was our wedding,"

"Slappy, I don't want to be here. It hurts," I crouched down upon the filthy floor, covering my face. Rhonda, Peter, Harold. I remember us starving, I remember Slappy gathering melted snow for us to drink. We suffered together, but the fantasy world we had built was not strong enough to keep us all alive.

"Think of who kept you in pain. Think of who killed your friends. Think of who pitifully attempted to be rid of me,"

"Madame Louisa," I whispered, peeking up at Slappy through my tear-stained, cobweb-entwined hair.

"She still lives here, Carrie. She's bedridden, and she is weak. She's ripe for the beating,"

"How can she live here, Slappy? How does she eat? How does she survive?"

"She has her ways, and others blind to her deplorable ways that come to help,"

"She's been here all this time," I spoke softly to myself, it was so hard to believe. That disgusting woman being waited upon like a queen, held up in her bedroom of shadows and wickedness. Who would come to her aid? They deserved to be punished as well. I felt blood flare in my veins, pulsing through me like wild, encroaching ivy. Giving me a mad, desirous energy. "What are we going to do to her?"

"Whatever you wish, my bride. If you need any suggestions, I've been saving up some good ones for quite awhile now," Slappy's green eyes were starry and wretched, and insatiable, just as mine were.

"Let's go," I couldn't bear to be in the phantom playroom anymore. I wouldn't dare to look in my old bedroom, either. My skin crawled as I passed the closed door, once white, now a murky and lonely gray. The wood chipped and smudged with ashes.

The door to Madame Louisa's room was pure white, a fresh coat of paint that had been applied after the fire. Staring at it filled me with a delicious rage. She did not deserve that color. The children's doors covered in smoke, and the witch's door cleaned from sin. I imagined her sitting in her silken bed, maybe with a box of chocolates or a magazine. She would have forgotten all of the children who lived here. Remorse had never punctured her heart, memories had never encircled her head at night, keeping her awake and aching from regret. She fancied herself wasting in elegance, taking her precious time to languish before death, but I wasn't even going to let her have that.

I pushed open the white door and she was propped in her bed, just as I had dreamed. She did not hold a box of chocolates, or a glossy magazine. She had been staring at the back of the door, seeming to know I was on the other side. The fragile, chalk-boned old woman glared into my hateful eyes, and then she saw Slappy walking towards her bed. Her thread-bare limbs began to tremble.

"You horrible creature! You bobble-headed doll of hell! You devil-possessed wooden puppet! Don't come any closer!" she spat at Slappy, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"And you!" her voice crackled like silver pine. Her finger, pointed at me, was the color, texture, and scent of rotten eggs. "I know what you've come for. I knew you would return one day,"

"And you know that you deserve to be punished," I stepped closer to her bed, there were piles of newspapers and rose-embossed plates of a half-eaten breakfast.

"No, it is not I who deserves punishment, wretched girl. It was always you. You were sinful the very first day you came to my orphanage. I could smell it on you. The other children could, too. I relished in their treatment of you. I encouraged it. You needed the sin beaten out of you. It's my only regret in life I couldn't finish the job,"

I gritted my teeth, trembling from the cold. "I was a little girl; I was all alone in the world. How could you ever think a little girl deserved to be so mistreated? How can you still believe that? What is it that I ever did to make you hate me so much?"

"Carrie, do not cry! Do not allow yourself to be weakened by memories! Remember what we came for!" Slappy's eyes were so hard, I swore the green had grown darker. I looked at him and could only remember all the nights I clung to him in bed, crying after whatever abuse I had endured from Louisa.

"Shut your mouth, you puppet of hell. Who cut your strings? Who gave you life?"

"I've never had strings," Slappy's mouth tightened into a menacing slash of a grin. "But if you would like them, I'll gladly oblige,"

I watched in horror as Slappy jumped onto the bed, brandishing rope out of thin air. He smirked and tossed off the moth-eaten quilt from Louisa's decaying body. Quickly he smothered her wrists and ankles in the thick rope, tying her limbs to the bedposts, so she was splayed before me, moths fluttering beneath her withering skin.

"Your call, my bride,"

"Bride? You sick, perverted girl. Filthy whore! That's what you've been your entire life, and what you will always be. A stained, twisted whore making love with her dummy. Oh, Jesus help me. Be with me. Keep me pure from their filth. Do not let their sin touch me,"

"How about you chew on this for awhile, you old crone," said Slappy, and a knotted rag, conjured from nowhere, appeared in his hands. He forced it into her praying mouth and chuckled. He turned to me, awaiting, his eyes a forest of evil.

"I don't want to do this, Slappy," I whispered. I could see light flood Louisa's eyes, she was relieved I did not want to hurt her. But I wasn't protecting her, I was protecting myself. I thought of myself as a little girl, no matter how badly she hurt, she'd never pass her pain on to others, even if they deserved it tenfold.

"How can you say that? Look at her, we've got her strung up like a turkey ready to fry! We've got her hanging above the abyss!"

"Slappy, no,"

He hopped down from the bed, his gaze so murderous and severe I sank down to the floor before him.

"Didn't you hear what she just said to you? She's tortured you all your life, and still wishes for you to suffer, and you don't want to make her pay for that?"

"Slappy, look at her! She'll be dead before sunrise if we're lucky. I don't want to be here, I don't want to do this. I thought I could, but I can't. Please, let's leave her here like this, won't that be enough?"

Slappy looked long and hard at me, and then his hand gripped so tightly round my arm I whimpered and collapsed from the pain. "Get up," he grunted in my ear.

"No Slappy!" I begged, throwing his rough weight off of me. "I don't care how evil she is, I don't care what she deserves. I don't want to be the same as her, I don't want to do this,"

He stood looking over me, there was something so starved inside his wooden body, he was insatiable. Like the night I'd seen him in the attic, when he had killed Mr. Grammel. And the night of Halloween when I was small, when Julia had spied upon us in my room. "You just don't want to get your hands dirty," he said with disgust, he was humiliated by my weakness.

"That isn't it, at all. This isn't what I want, tracking down each person who ever hurt me, and hurting them in return. I want to move on, Slappy. I don't care anymore," I stared back into his gleaming eyes, my entire body trembling.

"Liar!" he roared.

I fell backwards as he pulled out a kitchen knife, it glimmered in the gelid shadows of the room, merely seeing it pierced my heart with dread.

"Put this in her heart," he threw it at my feet, it clattered on the floor, the sound so loud I clamped my hands over my ears. "Do it!"

"No!"

"Then you will let her get away with it. You'll let her get away with snatching Richard from you. You'll let her get away with abusing you as a child. You'll let her get away with murdering Rhonda, Harold and Peter. You'll let her get away with separating us for so many years,"

My head felt so hollow and poisoned. I buried my fingers into the split halves of my brain, racking it for an answer, for an escape. I curled my knees under my chin and started to hit myself, slapping my own deranged face, my skin white with terror. All the while Slappy kept his eyes on me, smiling, wishing. I reached for the knife and gently coiled my fingers around its smooth handle, and glanced up at Madame Louisa, pale and stretched before me. She was an offering to be rid of my past, I could give her to death, and he could give me back a blank slate, a world where she had never existed.

"Do it now, Carrie," Slappy whispered, his voice was now seductive. I smiled back at him and tapped the knife upon the rotten floorboards, the tip made pretty little crescent chips into the russet wood. Like a child I wanted to carve my name, carve out 'Carrie loves Slappy', or 'Carrie was here'.

Louisa began to moan and weep, and her pitiful cries revolted me, incited me. All the times I had sobbed after her hand had struck me, when my own stomach had shrunken to a bowl of needles from starvation because of her neglect. I would never be cured of the misery she had inflicted upon me, but killing her would soften the pain.

I dragged myself from the floor, slowly, my eyes narrowed onto her writhing body. I could hear Slappy's whispers in my ear, enticing me. I could even hear Rhonda, Peter and Harold playing upstairs, their calls mournful and fading. Killing Louisa would set them free.

I gulped in a breath of air and shuddered horribly as I raised the knife, as I plunged it down my shaking hands flinched and instead, stabbed her in her rising belly. Realizing what I had done, coming down from the dazed, tantalizing high, I listened to the blood bubble up from her wound, a sick, awful sopping sound. She began to cough and blood leaked out through the cracks in her gag, staining the front of her yellowed nightgown. An extraordinarily haunting regret swept over me.

"Slappy, Slappy," I drew the knife from her stomach and dropped it to the floor, my entire body convulsing.

"You have to finish it!" he didn't care I was going into shock, my skin felt so cold, my veins had gone thick and frozen, and even though I trembled from sudden chill I could feel the heat in the room, too, that phantom bog coming back to suck me under. The mud made the same deathly sounds as Louisa's clogged mouth.

I sank in a dreamy haze to the swampy floor, and before my eyes were savagely closed I saw Slappy climb back into the bloody bed, the knife clutched in his glazed little hand, going up and down, up and down. He turned to me and his smiling face, coated in red, pulsed with life.

* * *

><p>Vanessa's balmy white hands were gentle waves against my forehead. She sat in bed with me, cradling me in her arms as Richard watched from the doorway, waiting for me to wake. My body was a child's body. My head was shattered, but when Vanessa threaded her fingers through my hair it dulled the throbbing pain.<p>

"All the children have been poisoned," his murky voice said, I kept my eyes closed and listened, frowning.

"Except our Carrie. We won't allow her to ever be hurt, will we?" Vanessa's voice was cracked porcelain.

I wanted to tell her she was dead. All of the children were dead. And I was dead, too.

I sat up in the creamy, silky bed and she smiled at me. She looked so beautiful and peaceful, I couldn't bear to tell her we were ghosts. But then I saw her skin change color, it rotted away from her bones and plopped onto my silken pillow, turning it to ash. The entire room turned to smothering ash. I reached for Vanessa's melting hands but she opened her mouth and laughed at me, and it was Slappy's high and cold laughter that emanated from her lips.

I woke again in the silk bed, my body no longer a child's, but sore and cramped and filled with anguish. I remembered the knife pitched into Louisa's stomach and began to retch. Somewhere above my head I heard Slappy sigh with disgust. I tried to control myself but the memory was so disgusting, it was alive and caught under my skin, I watched the veins pulse in my dirtied hands and then vomited over the edge of the bed, onto the graying carpet below.

"What a rookie," Slappy chuckled.

"Where, where are we?" I choked, spitting up the last of it and leaning back into the cool blankets.

"You don't know this room?"

My eyes flew open, taking in the smallness of the bedroom, dark in the late evening. My body sinking into the place etched so long ago within the thin mattress. On the desk by the smudged window sat all the homework assignments I never bothered to complete when Louisa had shut myself and the other children away from the world. From the loose drawers in the dresser flowed my frayed skirts and dresses, and even the marionette costume, still prim and crusted with glitter and dust.

How could he bring me here? I had never wanted to see this room again. I was dissolving into that tortured lonely child; and Slappy only sat propped on the faintly yellow pillow, his bloodstained face glowing and watching in amusement. I hurled myself from the bed but found my entire body felt broken, and weakly I fell onto the floor. My bare knees scraped against the stiff carpet as I crawled into the hall, shivering and trying not to be sick again.

My knees, bare. Where were my stockings? I looked down to see my dress had been removed. I was wearing a child's frock, the uniform we wore as orphans of the house. A midnight blue dress, and a slash of white ribbon across my waist. It was tight, suffocating me. Stiff with dust and age. Slappy had dressed me this way as I lay unconscious in my old bed. I looked up at him hatefully.

He continued to sit so serenely upon my childhood bed, grinning at me as the last of the cold setting sun vanished from the window, casting him in complete blackness.

"No one can stop us now, Carrie," he said placidly. I looked at him in horror and shook my head. "You'll get used to killing, I promise. We have many more to vanquish,"

"No, Slappy. I never want to do that again," I curled against the wall, the soft paper peeled away as I rested my head against it, and smeared my cheek black with silken ashes. But it was cold, it was soothing, and I shut my eyes. "What have I done, Slappy? What will Richard think,"

Slappy suddenly lunged, his wooden hands coiled round my throat. He shook me and shoved my head into the crumbling wall, so that more paper peeled away, falling into my eyes and open rasping mouth.

"Stop being weak and idiotic! We have begun our revenge, and tonight we will be married. Your precious Doctor is invited, of course. For we cannot consummate our love without him," he released me and pushed me, hard, into the peeled wall.

"What," my throat had been crushed under the weight of his hands, and lined with cakey dust. I coughed and sputtered and raked out the damage as best I could. "What do you mean?" it hurt to speak, I could taste blood on my tongue.

"Let's get back to the house, and I will show you,"

I obeyed for fear of being strangled again. Anything to get out of that terrible place. I shuddered thinking of Louisa's body, not wanting to know how Slappy had left her. Her white door was closed, still shining with freezing white light. I began to cry as we crawled back through the window and out into the shade of the gathering night. Stupidly I slashed my dress again, and this time it cut through to the skin, staining my wrist scarlet. I never wanted to remember, I never wanted to think again of my bedroom, the ruby-colored playroom, Louisa's scorn, the dining hall, the attic where Mr. Grammel's bones shone in the black trunk, the laundry room, the morgue where Slappy had gotten the little vial of crystal fluid. I didn't wait for him, I started to run and tears streaked my sweating face. I didn't care if anything happened to him, as my feet carried me home I hoped Slappy would be run over by a truck, or stolen by kids out trick-or-treating. I ran past houses alive with costume-adorned children. They did not know what to think of me. Was the blood on my dress real, or pretend? Green masks hiding their fear. There was a sweet rottenness in the air, clouds of burnt cedar, the scents of glazed apples and plump sugar. I reached the video shop again, still open after dark. The owner stood in the doorway dressed as a villain from a classic film, I couldn't guess his name. When he saw me he grinned, tossing golden wrapped chocolates in my direction.

"Hey, sweetheart! Have some!" he laughed at my back.

My ragged hair was licked by the wind, blowing wildly behind me. I knew everyone I passed took in my beaten face, my wounded arm, my lips brown with dried blood. I didn't care. The only thing that mattered to me was going home and protecting Richard from whatever cruelty Slappy was imagining in his demented little mind.

* * *

><p>Our street was empty, there were only leaves blowing gently in the wind to greet me. All of the lights had been turned off to steer away the children out hunting for candy in the neighborhood beyond ours. It was eerie; a soundless dark street on Halloween night, like all of the joy and innocence in the world had been snuffed out. I felt like those dreams I had heard people telling of having before, where the dreamer is the last being on earth. It felt like standing in the middle of a forest, standing on the top of a grave. There should have been children on every street singing and laughing, chocolate and butterscotch decorating their painted mouths. But there were no children in Richard's neighborhood, not even Hannah, who would have been revolted by the idea of trick-or-treating. The light of her house was silenced, too, her bedroom curtains still drawn like they had been that morning. Richard was not home, either.<p>

I didn't want to go inside yet. I stood rigid, listening for Slappy's glossy feet clacking behind me. Would he be able to find the way on his own? Of course he would, Slappy knew everything. I shuddered and decided to go into the garden to catch my breath.

The roses were so plump and sweet in the radiant, fresh moonlight. The scent of their petals calmed me as I pressed my face into the thick wall of blood red blossoms. They were soft like velvet, sedating me as I breathed them in. I stepped back in a daze. The autumn wind and moonlight so nourishing on my skin. The roses glow, the edges of their lush petals trimmed with silver. All that I have seen, that I have heard, that I have done; it is washed away, if only for a short while, by the crisp ripe wind and light.

And then the rosebushes shatter with noise.

Hannah and her friends, dressed in murky green rags, shriek and moan and burst into laughter as they climb out through the roses, sending a spray of petals to the ground. They glare at me, challenging me to chase them away. Liesel grins and pulls more of the roses from their vine, Rebecca smashes them with her gray boot. I stare hatefully back, but inside I am withering like the roses they've killed. Around their heads they wear diamond chokers that glint in the moonlight. Lifting their tattered green rags, they begin to dance in a circle around me, hissing and giggling into my face. They dream themselves witches, and chant my name lowly as they twirl. Delicate frays of rotted green silk tangle across my eyes, into my hair, around my shoulders, looping at my neck. I am pushed down roughly onto the damp grass and dragged to the small dark pond by the tulips.

"Hannah! Please stop them!" I cry, fighting desperately against the small girls, but they overpower me by far. I can see the moonlight trembling on the smashed roses. "Hannah please! Please!"

"Shut up," Hannah snaps, giving a rough tug on my long matted hair. The diamond choker hangs crooked round her forehead.

Rebecca and Liesel scratch at my skin in madness. Laughing with pleasure, they each pick me up by my arms and drop me into the pond. I slip in like a stone. The pitch black water smothers me, wavering like their green rags when the girls danced. But the coldness awakens me and pierces my blood. It is silent and silky, I look up to see the wavering blot of moon above, feeling again like I am standing in the middle of the lonely street. I swim upwards and shoot out to the glowing surface. Rebecca and Liesel are gone. Where they had danced and laughed and cursed me, Slappy stood. Hannah was sprawled on the grass at his feet, panting with fear.

"Get away from her Slappy," water drips from my hair into my eyes. I remain floating in the pond, gripping blades of blue grass for support.

"You'll take her back now? After how she betrayed you?" Slappy looked down at Hannah's small, frightened face, and kicked her hard in the side. She howled with pain that seared my heart and began to weep, crawling towards me.

I pulled myself out of the water, beads of it sopping from my heavy dress. I reached for her hands but Slappy gripped her round the ankles, dragging her backwards. Hannah kicked him as hard as she could, and he soared into the rosebush, tearing more of the innocent flowers down.

"Carrie I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Hannah couldn't get up, her little white hands still reaching for mine. I bent towards her to scoop her up in my arms and Slappy was back, more savage than ever. He kicked his hard black shoe into my ankle, cutting into the bone. And he laughed, he laughed. I collapsed into the soaking grass and reached for Hannah, but Slappy grasped her by the wrists now, dragging her as she screamed and writhed to the little black pond. Hannah feared pools of water more than anything.

"No! Slappy stop it! STOP IT!" my ankle throbbed with unholy pain, it felt as if there were a chain of sword tips round it, slowly but surely sawing through the bone. But I pulled myself up, limping weakly to where Slappy had forced Hannah's head under the water.

"LET HER GO YOU MONSTER!" I fell on top of him, hoping to crush his skull against the stones surrounding the pond. He only rolled away from me safely. The cold dark water closed over Hannah's scarlet head, she was unconscious. Her crimson hair floating in the cloudy water was so eerie, like she had already been transformed into a drowned corpse. "No," I moaned, plunging my hands in and wrapping my arms under hers, pulling her up though my body howled painfully in protest.

"Hannah! Hannah wake up!" I screamed into her dripping face. Her skin was so pale and chill. I pumped her chest and slipped my fingers into her mouth to breathe into her, but as soon as I touched her lips she shuddered and spewed up the dark water. I pushed her to her side and encouraged her to keep coughing it up. I looked wildly about the dark garden, but I couldn't see Slappy anywhere. Only the moonlight glowed on the massacred roses.

"Hannah, we have to get inside," I pat her back as she sputters up a fragile dribble of pond water. "Hannah, I don't think I can walk,"

She struggles to talk, but her throat is shut tight, her chest rasping and heaving. Her breath tastes like water lilies. She coughs as she stands, touching where Slappy had kicked her and wincing, but able to move. She holds out her hands for mine, and we both start to cry as I take them. I wrap my arms around her neck, softly, and she encloses hers around my waist, supporting me as we walk as quickly as we can to the back door.

"Richard?" Hannah whispers, it is all she can say. I lock the door and pull down the shade before collapsing onto the freezing marble. I press my cheek against it, wanting to kiss the pearly hardness. The cold is so soothing against my aching skin. We are safe for now.

"He isn't home yet, but when he gets here this will all be over. For good," I'm still holding Hannah's trembling hand. Gasping with pain I sit up and pull her into my arms, hugging her so tightly I feel her ribs entwine with mine. Our tears slip down our cheeks at the same time. "We're going to be okay Hannah, I promise. I won't let him hurt you again," I let her cry onto my shoulder as I gently run my hand through her hair. I pick out a rose petal and smile, showing it to her. I wipe away her tears with the soft red petal, like a butterfly's wing.

"Come on, let's get away from the windows," I put my weight onto Hannah's shoulders and we limp into the hallway to wait for Richard. The house is filled with stillness and darkness. I listen for Slappy but don't hear a sound. Hannah and I slide down to the moonlit floor, staring into the black dining room. I can smell the coffee stain still fragrant upon the wall, from when Richard had lost his temper that morning. It seemed that it had happened ages ago. I curled my arms round myself and gasped at the wetness of my dress. Water and blood; I had been bleeding since running away from the orphanage. The fragile sleeve of my dress was shorn and bloomed dark, dark red.

"Hannah, I did something terrible today," I confess, and bury my face into my sore knees. Hannah combs her fingers through my hair and I cry at her sympathetic touch. "I don't know if Richard can ever forgive me for what I've done,"

"Heh, heh, heh," a low, sinister cackle sounds somewhere from upstairs, sending Hannah and I crawling into the dining room, over the shattered pieces of porcelain and beneath the table, pulling the chairs in around us.

We breathe so sharply that we cover each other's mouths, I feel Hannah's tears slip between my fingers, knowing she is collecting my tears as well. I keep my eyes frozen to the staircase, heart thrashing, just waiting to see those hard black shoes, and the wretched little body they carry creeping down the steps. But he never shows himself, he only revels in his mad, low laughter. And all of the shadows of the house take the form of monsters, tricking me to whirl my head in every direction.

The laughter and swirling shadows stop as the front door opens and closes, a clean creak echoing through the still, menacing house. "Carrie?"

Rapturous, beautiful release floods my heart at the sound of Richard's voice. I am no longer afraid. "Stay here," I whisper to Hannah, and climb out from the tangle of golden chairs, tucking her back in safely. My ankle still swells with pain but I stagger into the hallway, and Richard's face goes white with shock at my appearance. "Carrie, what happened to your arm? And your leg? My darling, what's going on?"

"Please Richard, you have to get us out of here. Hannah is here with me, too. Slappy wants to kill you," I cling to his jacket and pull him urgently into the shadowed dining room. "Do you see her? Slappy tried to drown her. And he broke my ankle. I was wrong, Richard. He is evil, he never loved me," my words stammer as badly as my injured leg supporting my weight. Richard draws back, holding me at arm's length. His eyes are the same color as the cerulean moonlight pouring through the dim curtains of the house. They darken with concern.

"Carrie," he grips my shoulders, and his lips tremble as a dry sob escapes him. "You're getting worse, so much worse, I'm so afraid,"

"Richard, please believe me! Please!" I clutch at his chest, shaking him desperately, wanting to melt into him, to make him understand. "Ever since I was a child, Slappy wanted to marry me. And he hated you, he's hated you since the very first time you came to the orphanage. Remember? Do you remember how sick everyone got? Slappy tried to kill them, it was embalming fluid I helped him steal from the morgue! And he hated you because you saved everyone, like the kind and good person you are. The kind and good person I love. Richard, Slappy wants to kill you so he can have your body, you have to believe me, please. We have to leave!"

"My darling," he is weeping now, tears glittering in the hollows of his beautiful face. "I don't want to lose you to madness, Carrie," he strokes my cheek, his child fallen from grace.

"I'm not mad!" I shake my head, clenching his jacket, now drenched from my wet dress, tightly in my fists. "Richard, please! PLEASE!" I shriek into his neck, and he embraces me in his arms, crying thickly into my hair. He holds me so tightly I can listen to the fear growing in his heart. "Please believe me," I whisper, feeling his skin shiver, hearing the pulse of his rushing veins. I love him so much, I would stand forever in his arms, even on broken and bloody feet.

"Carrie—"

I draw back sharply, the fear now blooming into my heart. Richard's mouth is open with surprise, his arms around me slacken, and release my body. "Richard? What is it?" I draw his jacket into my hands again, keeping him steady. But he staggers and falls to his knees, revealing Slappy. "God, no, please, please," I sink to the floor to his side, ignoring the hateful dummy circling us, the knife that had killed Louisa glimmering in his hand.

"Hannah stay there!" I scream brokenly, catching sight of her crawling through the dining chairs. I take Richard into my arms and examine his back, an apple-sized hole seeping with blood, driven into the pearl of his spine. "No, Richard," I whisper gently, stroking his head that rests so weakly upon my chest. "Please don't leave me,"

He tries to speak to me but a clot of blood leaks from his mouth, staining the front of my dress. The white ribbon sash is now fully red. My blood, and his. Together. Slappy laughs so cruelly as he watches. "Ssh, Richard, don't talk, don't move," his black hair is so slick with moonlight, like cornsilk between my fingers.

"Carrie, I'm sorry," a flow of blood as he speaks, and I am weeping onto his face, dreaming so childishly that my tears will heal him, will wash away his pain. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you," he whispers. "I never would have—made you go back," he grips my body in his hands, coughing as blood rises in his chest. "To that place, where it frightens you so. I—I thought of you all day,"

"Please Richard, please be quiet? It's hurting you to talk," I rest my cheek atop his head, knowing his chest is being drowned by starlit blood. "I know you wouldn't have sent me back. I love you, Richard. I always have, I always wanted to be with you. And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I screwed everything up," I weep bitterly, clinging to him and inhaling his scent, the living scent that is fading so fast. And I want him to speak to me, even though it hurts, I want to hear his voice one last time.

"I should have believed you, Carrie, I could have stopped this, all those years ago," his chest scrapes against mine, grating through the blood. "I love you, my Carrie. You have been wonderful, you are all I ever wanted,"

I lay him back on the moon-poured floor as he breathes in slow, rasping gasps of air. Hannah has come out from under the table, Richard looks to her, consoling her with a smile, and she sobs uncontrollably. He turns back to me and takes my hands, his fingers are so cold, so drained of blood.

"Now is the time," Slappy chants lowly at my back, and begins to climb the stairs.

"What do you think you are doing?" I snap, clutching Richard's hands, swearing Slappy will not hurt him again.

"Right before your precious Doctor kicks the bucket, I can transfer my spirit into his body. But first, I must break myself to set forth my spirit," his eyes shine hungrily. "You see, there is a moment just before death, where his spirit will rise like a thread I can snatch. I'll cast his spirit somewhere dark, somewhere full of suffering to spite him. And then I can take over," he says this so lovingly, daring to gaze into my eyes. "You will have the face of your Prince, but the soul of your true love. It's just what we planned, my bride,"

"No!" I cry, laying beside Richard to shield his body. "That is never what I wanted," I wrap my arms round his waist, and, knowing Slappy can hear, whisper delicately in the shadows. "Everlasting. True Love. I am yours, Even In Death,"

Richard smiles, his eyes staring at me from another realm, and tenderly I press my bruised lips to his forehead, so smooth and cold, the shade of the stars. Violet velvet. His blue eyes dim calmly with death, and then his soul leaves me forever.

"It isn't that simple," Slappy cackles, and heaves himself down the stairs. Before his fragile body can smash upon the hardwood floor, Hannah sprints across the hall to catch him, and pins him down with her knees, swiftly locking his arms behind his back, and pushing his grunting head forward to keep him from bucking into her face.

"You're too late, Slappy. Richard is dead," I stand up, the pain shooting through my body illuminating me. I am so filled with grief and hatred that nothing can hurt me.

"You bitch! You ruined our plan! You betrayed me, just as everyone in your life has betrayed you. I guess you learned well, Carrie," Slappy squirms urgently against Hannah but she is unrelenting. I know she is enjoying this little moment of enslaving him, a slight taste of revenge for what Slappy had done to her.

"No, Slappy. I'm not betraying you. I'm moving on. You don't love me, you never have. You love control,"

He resists fighting and stares back at me, eyes empty of moonlight. Slappy's eyes cannot reflect light as Richard's did, because Slappy is not alive. He is only a hollow shell of lingering evil. The fairytale that haunted my head so, so long is melting.

"I remember now. You didn't care when I told you Rhonda had been raped. You let me think it was her fault. And you wanted to do it to me, when I was a child,"

"I killed that bastard rapist!" he spewed, beginning to thrash against Hannah again.

"Only when he tried to hurt me! You never cared that he hurt Rhonda, who was innocent too. You tried to murder her, along with the other children. I don't care how they treated me, Slappy, they didn't deserve that. Hannah didn't deserve it either. All you care about is how to serve yourself, if someone is hurt or killed along the way, you take no responsibility,"

He is growling, heaving with rage and looking at me in such a way it would peel the skin from someone who was vulnerable. Someone who was a tiny, frightened child possessing a malleable heart. A child who had never known love until a beautiful doctor and his wife promised to take her away from the darkness haunting her innocent life.

"You're nothing more than a doll, Slappy. And I don't want to play with dolls anymore,"

"What are you going to do to me, Baby Carrie?" he taunts, but there is panic on his face.

Hannah holds up his kicking body for me to take. He slips so easily into my arms, for the very last time.

"Carrie, please. I love you. I was your only friend in that horrible place. I remember what you said to me. You wanted me to be real. I am real. I know I am real, as real as the shadow because I love you. I am real because your beauty makes me whole. I love you more than that Doctor, I can give you more than he ever could. He died Carrie, he left you! I would never leave you!"

"Carrie, watch out!" Hannah screams, sucking in her breath as Slappy laughs manically and coils his hands round my throat. But I expected his trickery. I rip his arms loose and smash his head with all the force in my aching body against the banister of the stairs. Pieces of him shatter to dust, raining to the floor and cutting my skin. A weird green mist hangs in the air, but as it has no one weak enough to enter, it begins to diminish, sinking back into the pieces of his body till the hallway grows dim with moonlight again.

I sink back beside Richard's lifeless body, weeping and refusing to look at what I'd done to Slappy. I fit myself against his corpse and twine my arms round him. It had been so hard to realize, it had taken so long to understand I was nothing more than a pawn to Slappy. He had stolen everything from me, and now he had taken the love of my life.

"Carrie," Hannah sniffled, laying down beside me and fitting her arms round my waist, so that our bodies filled the hall, Hannah, me, Richard. Two of us weeping, and one to never make another sound.

"We'll bury the pieces of Slappy, Hannah. In different places, so no one will ever be able to put him back together, so he can never hurt anyone again,"

I wept as bitterly as I had done so many times in Slappy's arms. But a part of me was relieved to know it was all over, that the dark fairytale of Slappy and I would be locked in the heart of my childhood forever. I turned to peer at the mangled pieces of his body, and looking back at me was a bright, round green eye. I swear that it winked, and then closed fast with sleep.


End file.
